Power shares

[blackcap]

Snoopy,

10 cents of that 27 cents per Kw/h that you pay is transmission charges. So you are probably paying closer to 17 cents for your power.

Why not join Flick... I pay 22 cents for my power. Something like 10 cents transmission, 4 cents profit margin, and 8 cents per Kw/h. Better than your deal.

[Jantar]

…..

I buy my power as an ordinary household lot. That means I buy my power by the kWh. $50/MWh is equivalent to 5000c/MWh or 5c/kWh. I am paying 27.6c/kWh for my power. So that really brings home what a good 'energy' deal the Tiwai smelter is on....

SNOOPY, you are not comparing apples with apples here. Your retail price of 27.4 c/kWh is made up from roughly 1/3 (or 10c) for the energy, 1/3 (or 9 c) for the local network charges, and 1/3 (or 8 c) for Transpower charges, ancillary products, like spinning reserve and frequency keeping, and EA security charges. This is all lumped into a single bill for you.

Tiwai pays all these charges separately, although to be fair, they get paid for their interruptible load as a contribution to spinning reserve. Their network charge is also very small as that 600 MW never goes through the network and they only have a small local service transformer for their essential supplies that comes off the network.

The true comparison between your energy charge and Tiwai's energy charge is the 10c component of your energy bill to the 5c component of Tiwai's energy bill. To see the true energy part of your bill go to your gentailer's monthly operation report and look at the netback. Although not an exact figure it is generally representative of the amount that the they expect from retail customers. I know that at least two of the big companies use the long term average of ASX forward price curve to set their transfer price from generation to retail.

[Snoopy]

Snoopy,

10 cents of that 27 cents per Kw/h that you pay is transmission charges. So you are probably paying closer to 17 cents for your power.

Why not join Flick... I pay 22 cents for my power. Something like 10 cents transmission, 4 cents profit margin, and 8 cents per Kw/h. Better than your deal.

I am seriously thinking about it Blackcap. My current power deal expires at the end of the month. I am wondering if I would need a new electricity meter though? I know the disadvantage with the likes of Flick is that you pay 'market price' during the power price spikes as well. So if I got hold of a 'household battery', along the lines of a Tesla Powerwall, and kept that charged up enough to get me over the power spikes then my operational savings might get serious.

My power meter was replaced about ten years ago with a 'smart' one that can be read remotely. But 'smart' ten years ago may not equate to 'smart' today. How do you address the 'power spike' charge issue on your own account Blackcap?

SNOOPY

[iceman]

Snoopy,

10 cents of that 27 cents per Kw/h that you pay is transmission charges. So you are probably paying closer to 17 cents for your power.

Why not join Flick... I pay 22 cents for my power. Something like 10 cents transmission, 4 cents profit margin, and 8 cents per Kw/h. Better than your deal.

I just looked at my account for June. I paid 10.8c to the energy supplier (Ecotricity) + 0.58c to the lines company as well as $ 0.95 daily to them + $20 for the month in admin etc.
It is very difficult to compare the services we get.
If I just take my June total cost divided by kWh, the cost is approx 18.7c TOTAL cost per kWh. Then Network Tasman always sends us a refund cheque each year for the lines charges, but this is probably only around 2 c. per kWh. So I guesstimate my REAL TOTAL cost of electricty is around 16c per kWh. But Ecotricity then pays me 0.0809c for my solar exports, which makes a huge difference.
But will that continue with Tiway (and maybe NZ Steel and others) closing and us having excess power production ? I suspect solar may become uneconomic in the next few years which makes the Green's policy of solar power in each state house ridiculous.

[Onion]

I am just finishing my PhD in climate science, and I have not been able to find any point in time at which natural variation in climate finished and anthropogenic change started. Thus I can say with confidence that climate change is NOT man made. That is not the same as saying that man isn't having an influence. Does that make me a denier as well?

Yes it does.

Do you believe that the massive growth in greenhouse gases (produced substantially by humans) and the year on year and decade on decade increases in global temperatures are not linked?

Just because you cannot identify a definitive point in time that it happened (or started) does not mean that it is not occurring. I’m astonished that you would make such an assertion. Do you call yourself a scientist?

Personally, I find it difficult to pinpoint the exact times of year when winter becomes spring and spring becomes summer. I guess (following your reasoning) that seasons don’t happen and the temperatures in winter are the same as in summer after all.

[Cricketfan]

My power meter was replaced about ten years ago with a 'smart' one that can be read remotely. But 'smart' ten years ago may not equate to 'smart' today. How do you address the 'power spike' charge issue on your own account Blackcap?

SNOOPY

Smart is smart AFAIK.

[horus1]

Flick have a fixed hedge option at about 9c/kwhr. Most people I know in the indusyrt are on flick.

[Snoopy]

Smart is smart AFAIK.

What I want is a meter that will sense when spot retail prices get above a certain level. At that point it will switch off the grid and switch over to my house battery supply, thus shielding me from the 'peak hour' spike in spot retail prices. Then when the prices go down below my trigger level, the house battery will disconnect and my smart meter will see me resume taking my power from the grid. Finally in the middle of the night, with retail spot power prices at their lowest ebb, my smart meter will direct the grid to fully charge my battery again in the 'wee small hours' so it will be fully charged for the next day. Where can I get a smart meter like that?

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

Flick have a fixed hedge option at about 9c/kWh. Most people I know in the industry are on flick.

The 'fixed hedge' option was Flick's answer to the October 2018 power price spike event?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108...le-prices-bite

I guess any response is good. But the 9c per unit of power price isn't that different to the 10c per unit of power price bandied around here for some of the big five. The hedge option kind of removes the point of differentiation that Flick (and other spot price retailers) had from the big five IMV.

SNOOPY

[horus1]

Snoopy you have to look at the other charges . The big retailers put mark up on them but flick dont. Transmission is about 12 % , Distribution about 35%. All charges should nave drtopped on 1 st April as the CC reduced distribution charges but most retailers held onto the decrteases for themselves , Flick did not.