Hi folks, we are a household of 9 with relatively high electricity use. We are currently with flick and are considering changing to a cheaper power supplier. May I ask for your suggestions as to which company we should consider changing to?
Comparing Electricity Companies and Prices
imphee on 10/06/2025 - 20:27
Comments
This comes up every time, but the reality is the regions are huge. The only difference in pricing between you and the person across the street might be in that one of you doesnt have a new power meter.
https://comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/electricity-line…
There are always going to be dividing lines somewhere.
The point is that when people post saying that XYZ company is absolutely the cheapest right now, they are just being clueless, as they just don't understand how it works.
The meter issue is a good point though and just reinforces that you need to get quotes yourself.
I tend to disagree that it's only meter issue. For e.g. New development on both side of streets, with all houses being built around same 4-6months period would highly likely have the same meter. Even then the pricing differs, so I have no clue what gives.
Edit: In past I have compared prices of mine and atleast 5 houses on my street on both sides and neighbors. I got atleast 3 different pricing from the same XYZ company.
In past I have compared prices of mine and atleast 5 houses on my street on both sides and neighbors. I got atleast 3 different pricing from the same XYZ company.
That would be somewhat unusual I'd think, but the network grid segments are not at all obvious from what I can tell, so it could potentially weave in and out of a single street, especially if the street itself is curved / bent / crooked, or otherwise unsavoury :-P
Worth having a read through the MoneyHub Power Guide(moneyhub.co.nz). There’s a fair bit of information in there but is very comprehensive and a good place to start comparing the various electricity retailers in your area.
I used to build a spreadsheet with lists of quotes from different suppliers. That was for the last time I changed (about 2 years ago) and previously. At that time octopus was the best for me by far. It was a fairly tedious affair and took a long time to get to the result.
However this time round I used chatgpt. I uploaded my last 24 months bills asking it to create a table with pertinent variables like day rate, usage rate, and at different times etc. then I added quotes I got from different suppliers. These I got from screen shots from power switch and glimp. I asked chatgpt to add these quotes to the table indicating cost differences at different periods (overnight, day, eve) etc as I work from home some days. And to recommend a supplier together with the reasons why, and whether there were any caveats like for instance free power periods etc. I also had added to chatgpt to ask me for my usage patterns to help it better compare.
It took some amount of finessing but I got the following out of it, a supplier and quote that was a lot better than others, also the knowledge of how close the other quotes were, and how some looked cheaper at first glance but based on my usage patterns would end up a lot more.
For the record, I used to be with octopus that had no daily charge, but their prices were increasing a lot and a daily charge was being added. I'm now with Genesis low user. Overall it took me about 1hr of effort, including the time to call up the supplier to get signed up as for my chosen rate there was a problem with their sign up website.
Doing the spreadsheet is fairly trivial to be fair.
You just download your usage for, say, the last 12 months, then add a few formulae to show the total cost if you had been on a given plan for whatever provider(s) / plan(s) you are comparing.
Getting the quotes is the time consuming part, as you will often get a significantly better quote by calling, than just using their published plan rates, but actually putting each additional one into Excel (at least) takes about two mins each if that.
The problem either way (spreadsheet or via an online template / assistant) is that there is an implicit assumption that your usage on a new plan, will match your usage under your old plan. If a new plan has, for example, free power from 9pm to 7am (and your old one didn't), then it is reasonable to assume your usage pattern would alter to use more power in that period, and perhaps more importantly, more power overall, than under the old plan (and potentially deliver more utility to you in the process). As an example, perhaps you would now use your dryer by default after 9pm, whereas previously you dried your clothes outside by default, and only used the dryer if necessary. Setting aside the hygiene issues and environmental impact of using a dryer, you might regard that as a positive for you personally.
I haven't worked out how to properly account for that yet, apart from trying to make some reasonable assumptions, but very hard to judge in advance :-)
One of the users here did the hard work for you, see here https://www.cheapies.nz/comment/262978/redir. Then just upload the csv from your power supplier and add in the pricing profiles (each power company's offering).
Thanks for that!
There is never going to be one answer that is better than any other to this question.
Even an identical house and household, on the other side of your street (maybe even your literal next door neighbour), might get a different deal than you from the same provider, due to potentially being on a different grid segment.
The only true 'best' option is for you to contact as many different providers as you can be bothered, and get quotes from them for your specific address and usage. At the very least, I suggest getting a minimum of three quotes, but the more the better.