Flick has been sold to Meridian

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#3372993 14-May-2025 10:54

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Top 4 retailers in AU make up 71% of the market, in NZ it is 87%. Look me in the eye and tell me that we are better served for competition than AU (not that it operates fantastically well as an energy market)

"Grumble grumble"

Behodar

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#3372994 14-May-2025 11:04

wellygary:

In terms of reasonable size the remaining independents are Nova, Polse, Elect Kiwi and 2 Degrees....

I'd forgotten about Nova. And, having looked at their rates, I shall continue to do so! (Extra 30c/day and extra 5.9c per kWh compared to Frank).

boosacnoodle

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#3373009 14-May-2025 11:50

darkasdes2:

Are there any independents left now?

I have been with Flick since the start so sad to see them go.

I'm not sure I'd call Flick an independent, either, given their ownership via. Z Energy (itself owned by Ampol, an Australian petroleum company).

heapsort

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#3373035 14-May-2025 13:13

CamH:

heapsort:

If I'm going to be a customer of Meridian again, I may as well return to its subsidiary Powershop. But I'll check out Ecotricity first.

Ecotricity is now 100% owned by Genesis just in case you weren't aware.

I wasn't aware, and that rules them out for me.

E3xtc

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#3373038 14-May-2025 13:26

CamH:

Ecotricity is now 100% owned by Genesis just in case you weren't aware.

Wow I didn't know about this either - has it been this way since forever or a change recently?

Updated to say - looks like it happened Nov last year - https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/5859313/37631826/entityFilingRequirement

Interesting that (from what I recall) its total radio silence about that happening 🤔

Aucklandjafa

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#3373048 14-May-2025 14:11

michaelmurfy:

This is the end of times for smaller retailers IMHO.

I was once with Octopus Energy but they have now priced themselves out of the market (not their fault). I’ve always supported the smaller players as they were the only ones fighting for change but Electric Kiwi have also priced themselves way out.

These days I’m with Genesis which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Would love there to be more competition in NZ but in reality, the big players have squashed that competition out and I don’t see things improving anytime soon.

Thanks Max Bradford!

Yes and no. I’m currently with Octopus, looking at a gentailers pricing on current usage I’d save a few dollars a month. I’ve just rolled off my 2 year promo of zero line charges, saving the better part of $700, so I’m happy to keep with them for the time being and support the little guy.

wellygary

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#3373049 14-May-2025 14:31

Aucklandjafa:

Yes and no. I’m currently with Octopus, looking at a gentailers pricing on current usage I’d save a few dollars a month. I’ve just rolled off my 2 year promo of zero line charges, saving the better part of $700, so I’m happy to keep with them for the time being and support the little guy.

Octopus' UK parent turned over 12 billion quid last year... they are not as 'little" as they seem....

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

Aucklandjafa

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#3373053 14-May-2025 15:07

wellygary:

Aucklandjafa:

Yes and no. I’m currently with Octopus, looking at a gentailers pricing on current usage I’d save a few dollars a month. I’ve just rolled off my 2 year promo of zero line charges, saving the better part of $700, so I’m happy to keep with them for the time being and support the little guy.

Octopus' UK parent turned over 12 billion quid last year... they are not as 'little" as they seem....

Small compared to other NZ providers. Wouldn’t say 5k is a massive customer base

mattwnz

20108 posts

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#3373103 14-May-2025 15:37

lachlanw:

There's more retailers per capita in New Zealand than in both the Australian and UK markets."

This actually pisses me off, gaslighting your majority owners.

Many power retailers are just brands owned by a handful of parent companies, so they aren’t providing genuine competition. Frank was created by Genesis as a lower cost brand at the time but the profit gets made by the posted company. The exact date problem occurs in the building materials market where a lot of the different brands are owned by a few parent companies.

mattwnz

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#3373106 14-May-2025 15:53

Wheelbarrow01:

I was a loyal fan of Frank until this gas fiasco. My gas bottle account was transferred to Genesis without my consent but with a hefty price rise of more than 50% plus the introduction of a ridiculous bottle rental fee, so I called them and told them to shove it. They came and picked their 2 x 45kg gas bottles up, and I then bought and filled my own 18kg bottles. Given this is for our bach, we typically only used a single 45kg bottle in a year or so, so the 2 x 18kg bottles will last us around the same time - we'll just ferry a bottle back home in the boat to refill every 6 months (around $50 a fill vs $190 for Genesis' 45kg swap). Yes this is marginally more inconvenient but we are also now saving hundreds a year on bottle rental.

And as for electricity, as soon as the price rise from Frank came through, we switched to Electric Kiwi. Slightly more expensive KwH rate but they still maintain their 69c/day fixed charge for low users when everyone else including Frank has had 3 hikes to around $1.70 or more now.

I checked it EKs pricing and in my area they charge nearly 80 cents per kWh in on peak times. Don’t think I have seen any power company charge that much. So that would quickly eat into any daily charge savings.

mudguard

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#3373137 14-May-2025 19:23

I must admit I don't really look at our power bill in much detail.

We are on mains gas so a bit limited in who we can switch to so I just leave it. Gas for the water and hobs.

We pay 26.55c per kWh for electricity and 13.64c per kWh for gas (it does feature the volume used as well but converts it to a kWh equivalent for easier comparison I guess).

I've no idea if we are low or high users either. Just two of us, two heatpumps used a lot and live in Auckland. I noticed the bill has total usage for the last 365 days

5169kWh electricity

2720kWh gas so

7889kWh PA or 21kWh per day.

insane

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#3373581 15-May-2025 13:37

I was with Frank, but I feel their entire operation was a giant bait and switch. For a short while their pricing was indeed market leading, but we all saw how that went out the window. No doubt they'll expand their product offering again after a cool down period and repeat the process to feed and gouge apathetic customers via Genesis.

I was lucky with my timing, I switched to Mercury while they were slow by a week to match others raising their pricing, and took advantage of their 12m price lock.

I'll be jumping the moment the maths works out better with another provider - it's not like the power coming out the plug is any different.

I average about $400-$450 a month, so small differences in energy rates do add up.

Ragnor

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#3373660 16-May-2025 01:42

Running our typical usage through powerswitch I see nothing cheaper than Frank currently for anytime "don't want to micro manage when we use power" rates.

Powershop or one of the minows could be cheaper with micro managment but no thanks, time is sanity/money.

tdgeek

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#3373709 16-May-2025 11:24

lachlanw:

There's more retailers per capita in New Zealand than in both the Australian and UK markets."

This actually pisses me off, gaslighting your majority owners.

Yeah its like saying there is great competition in the grocery sales sector (if you included dairies and teeny one family mini markets)

michaelmurfy

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#3373719 16-May-2025 13:00

Ragnor: Running our typical usage through powerswitch I see nothing cheaper than Frank currently for anytime "don't want to micro manage when we use power" rates.

A bit of a tip - if you export your yearly data, simplify it slightly by removing columns that don't matter, import it to ChatGPT (I believe using the o4-mini model) and describe what you've imported "This is the power use in kWh for the last year for NZ provider Octopus, each line is 15mins, this meter 55 is showing hot water usage as a controlled load. My rates are these. Compare other rates as I hand them to you showing monthly and yearly cost" it'll compare rates telling you the cheapest.

I used it to compare even on-peak and off-peak plans by giving it the details of those plans and concluded, in my case, I could save over $500/yr by switching to Genesis.

Had a few people do this now and it is great for comparing based on actual usage data.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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