The chill of rising power prices
What we pay for power continues to be a concern for many Kiwis.
What we pay for power continues to be a concern for many Kiwis.
Before you open your power bill this winter, you might want to take a seat. Another round of price hikes mean many of us are likely to be paying more to heat our homes over coming months.
Low hydro lake levels are also driving up prices on the wholesale electricity market. That’s hitting power retailers trying to gain an edge by selling “spot price” plans to consumers.
Spot prices are tied to the wholesale market. When hydro lakes are full, prices drop and power is cheaper for customers on these plans. But in dry years, it’s a different story. In the year to March, wholesale prices for electricity generation spiked a sizeable 29 percent.
Some companies are pulling back from spot price offerings until the outlook is rosier.
Not surprisingly, what we pay for power continues to be a concern for many Kiwis.
Our annual survey found just 11 percent felt power companies always charged households fairly. Most said they’d look more favourably on retailers if they lowered prices.
For 26 percent, household power costs remain a major concern. As we’ve found in previous years, a significant proportion (18 percent) have trouble paying their monthly power bill.
In the past 12 months, one in eight had overdue fees added to their bill because they couldn’t pay on time. Fourteen percent had borrowed from family or friends, while seven percent had taken out a loan to cover their bill.
One in 10 Kiwis said they’d been refused service by a power company because they’d previously missed payments.
There’s no requirement for power retailers to supply consumers. So if you look like a bad credit risk, the company can turn you away.
You could also be cut off. Electricity Authority figures show there were 20,250 disconnections for non-payment of bills in 2019.
For these consumers, the only option to get back on the grid may be to switch to a prepay plan, where you have to pay for power in advance.
Seven percent of consumers in our survey reported having to switch to a prepay plan because they’d previously had trouble paying their electricity bill.
Despite paying for power in advance, prepay customers can be charged tariffs that are near the top of the market. We’re calling for mandatory standards to ensure consumers on prepay plans are treated fairly and don’t face disproportionate charges.
More than 100,000 households are estimated to be in energy hardship and can’t afford to heat their homes properly, according to the 2019 Electricity Price Review (EPR) report.
In response to the EPR’s recommendations, the government announced a $17 million package to provide support for these households and to fund a new consumer advocacy council.
To put that funding in perspective, last year alone Mercury Energy spent $17.7 million on advertising and public relations campaigns. That’s the equivalent of supplying 8850 homes with power for a year.
Powerswitch is the free, independent way to check your power plan, and see if you could save - backed by Consumer NZ. So why pay more than you need to? Check in just 3 minutes - and make sure you know the deal.
It's tough seeing Canterbury suffer floods but the upside is almost all the hydro dams are full this year. This is a good thing in winter right? Cheaper power bills are on the way...yeah right!
This from 1998: "In recent weeks, some power companies have run an eleventh-hour public relations campaign to worry consumers and confuse people into thinking the Government's reform package will put up their electricity bills. "This is nonsense," the Ministers (Bradford & Peters) said. "
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/electricity-reforms-better-deal-consumers
How can private companies that need to return a shareholder dividend, provide competitive pricing? By neglecting maintenance. Otago now has a $1b bill to replace neglected power poles.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc/claim-aurora-facing-1b-bill
Auckland had 5 weeks of power outages caused by rusty D shackles at the Otahuhu substation- neglected maintenance.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/a-crisis-recalled-the-power-cuts-that-plunged-the-auckland-cbd-in-darkness-for-five-weeks/IZBJMV3I4H4FOQIX3MIG5JBN3Y/
NZ Steel has cut production due to highspot prices of electricty, and thousands of industrial jobs are at risk, and we became a dumping ground for cheap Communist steel.
https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/markets/wake-up-call-limited-steel-production-record-electricity-prices
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/power-struggle-industry-warns-thousands-of-jobs-at-risk-due-to-electricity-prices/O7O7ELCPWLHWYJ5RO54AVKR5II/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/87920079/mbie-launches-investigation-into-chinese-steel-dumping
You cannot have "green power" without dirty power to manufacture it. It takes coal to make EVs, solar panels and turbines; oil to make PVC coated eletrical wire and tyres for EV's; coal to make steel and oil refinery waste to seal our roads. EV batteries can't be yet recycled (US company Redwood has yet to prove it), and will be tomorrow's toxic waste problem.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-race-to-crack-battery-recycling-before-its-too-late/
The London School of Economics with its Jesuit intellectual thinktanks to privatise State assets and use offshore sweatshop instead of country of origin manufacturing, has led to economic disaster to all formerly prosperous countries that have followed it- like us.
The World Economic Forum is similarly run, and their slogan "Build back better," (Google that) echoed by almost all world leaders- like ours.
Insulate to the max and get off the grid if you can.
A number of power companies advertise rates that are MINUS GST (without telling you that fact) in order to seem cheaper than others. Why are they allowed to quote in a retail market like this ? Surely that is illegal & deceptive !
The cynic might note that while lake levels fluctuate (going up and down) but the prices only go one way....up. Yes it is about more than lake levels it is transmission costs etc but again....costs are going only one way. Anyone who has watched the movie “Smartest Guys in the Room” about the Enron business scandal and the way they manipulated the market by creating a power crisis to maximize profits has to be suspicious. I certainly am.
How many years have the suppliers been spilling water to increase profits? It'd be a safe bet that's happened many times over the years without comment.
Your power bill is only part of of the energy issue. It is long overdue for examination of the the generators and distributors in the power supply chain. They are initially responsible for setting the price chain and the retailers are locked in to supply electricity at a price above what they can buy at wholesale to continue to survive to sell you your energy needs.
Into this unstable environment we are being pushed towards electric cars. Can anyone conceive of the results of all our vehicles being plugged into the grid? It just won't work. There is a limit to how much coal we can import and burn and isn't that counter productive to our aims to limit carbon emission? Solar panels are not a long term solution either as no-one knows how to dispose of them safely. To balance our needs for power and our desire to rescue the planet we just may have to start thinking nuclear.
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