MCY Mercury NZ ( MRP Mighty River Power)

[fish]

Sorry Horus, but the domestic price you have quoted does include transpower and network charges. If it didn't then the consumer would be paying around 40c per unit to include those other charges. Most retailers do not break down their charges to energy, Transmission and distribution, but includes them all as a single per unit charge. If yours is one of the few that does break them down then perhaps you can tell us how much your total bill per unit is.

From mcy quarterly report-The average energy price to customers was up (to $108.20/MWh) compared to the same period last year ($106.11/MWh). This increase partially reflects loyalty offerings redeemed in the prior period associated with the Mercury brand launch.

So it appears to be 10.8 cents per units for mcy customers-great value!

ps-thats an average so some may be paying more-I guess large industrial consumers will negotiate a lower price and domestic pay correspondingly more-but thats fair enough isnt it?

[Jerry]

A detailed map of prices etc can be found here...
http://www.em6live.co.nz/PlanningReg...ningregion=lsi

That's the market prices between generators and retailers. Myself as Joe public pays about 30c per kWh inc GST. I'm paid 7c for my roof-solar.

[fish]

Thanks Jerry
I am looking at solar and an EV when the time is right for me-possibly next year-and possibly battery storage.
Thanks to your info and Jantars I think I have it all sorted in my mind.
Mercury sells its generation at an average price of 10.8 cents plus gst.
You receive 7 cents(does this include gst?).
So that seems fair enough until we add in other factors e.g.-
You reduce the demand on transpower and less line losses.
You reduce co2 emissions and global warming.It is apparent looking at your link that in the heat of summer over 40% of our power is coming from fossil fuels-i know its a dry year and this is unusual but we still burn more fossil fuel than we need and solar would mitigate it if it was encouraged by fairer pricing.

[Jerry]

Fair pricing? Wash your mouth out! Though actually, much of the time 7c is about the right price. $70/MWh retail. Batteries are STILL not really economic; in winter they'd be great. At the moment our biggest load is when we cheerfully turn on the air-con, knowing the roof is providing the juice. We still pay lines charges, of course, as we are still using mostly Trustpower's electricity (our roof provides up to 4kW, but this falls off rapidly at equinox). There would be very few solar users who are off the grid. The 7c is taken off the electricity charges first before the GST is calculated. Apologies, this is becoming an 'Off market discussion'.

[iceman]

Thanks Jerry
I am looking at solar and an EV when the time is right for me-possibly next year-and possibly battery storage.
Thanks to your info and Jantars I think I have it all sorted in my mind.
Mercury sells its generation at an average price of 10.8 cents plus gst.
You receive 7 cents(does this include gst?).
So that seems fair enough until we add in other factors e.g.-
You reduce the demand on transpower and less line losses.
You reduce co2 emissions and global warming.It is apparent looking at your link that in the heat of summer over 40% of our power is coming from fossil fuels-i know its a dry year and this is unusual but we still burn more fossil fuel than we need and solar would mitigate it if it was encouraged by fairer pricing.

Fish have a look at Ecotricity if you are considering a change to solar and a new power supplier. www.ecotricity.co.nz I went with them a few months ago. They have two rates for me, 12c and 22.5c GST and network charges included and they pay me 7.5c for solar back to grid.
Sorry to be of thread.

Discl: only a happy customer of Ecotricity

[horus1]

The real problem is that customers pay for transmission but in most markets the producer pays to get the product to market. I am with Flick so get real spot prices and it has saved me a lot of money. Prices vary all over the show. The average price includes domestic, commercial and industrial and believe me domestics are paying a lot more than commercials and Tiwai. When the thermal generation is running there is very little cap on the prices and no competition . All generation gets the top price . Believe me it is a rort.
The lack of regulation in the energy market is a failure of common sense. I hope it will be corrected and a realistic buy back price will be mandated as well a a cap on the spot prices and mandatory selling of generation into a pool so all have to buy from it.

[Snoopy]

The average price includes domestic, commercial and industrial and believe me domestics are paying a lot more than commercials and Tiwai. When the thermal generation is running there is very little cap on the prices and no competition . All generation gets the top price . Believe me it is a rort.

You can argue that pricing all power at the highest generator offer price that matches current demand is a rort. Because any existing generation built long ago (particularly renewable) will be reaping today's prices while incurring (largely) yesterday's costs.

The current large generators would argue it is not a rort, because they need a high price today to justify any new capital expenditure, which will have to be made at today's prices. Furthermore because the existing electricity market favours the construction of any new power station at the lowest marginal cost above existing prices (i.e. it favours no particular technological path forwards), then the market is working correctly.

Of course the preceding paragraph contains the assumption that the marginal cost of new generation will always rise. That might be true if we are looking at large capital projects. But maybe some of the 'new generation' 'distributed power generation' ( e.g. distributed solar from a storage battery) might be less per MWh than a new incremental modern day Clyde dam (for example)?

The lack of regulation in the energy market is a failure of common sense. I hope it will be corrected and a realistic buy back price will be mandated as well a a cap on the spot prices and mandatory selling of generation into a pool so all have to buy from it.

That last sentence sounds like the mission statement for the old Electricorp!

How would mandatory selling of generation work today though? Are you suggesting that hydro outflows should be mandated to match hydro inflows (for example)?

And isn't a lot of thermal generation completely discretionary? So what you are proposing is a man from Genesis (say) shovelling coal into a boiler, while alongside him is another man with a shovel from the government who will shovel more coal in, if he decides the Genesis stoker is not working appropriately hard enough?

SNOOPY

[Jantar]

....and mandatory selling of generation into a pool so all have to buy from it.

That is the way it currently works for all grid injection points (generators) of 10 MW or greater. Generation is offered to the market, and transpower dispatches that generation as per the cleared offers. The market is that pool that all generators sell their energy into. Generators of less than 10 MW do not have to offer into the market, but still receive market price for their generation.

All retailers buy from that common pool at the cleared nodal price. There is no side agreements permitted and no generation is permitted without a cleared offer.

However all market participants can enter into financial agreements via hedges, cfds, swaptions etc. But these are purely financial agreements and do not convert to any physical supply requirement.

[horus1]

Great explanations,thanks. How come flick saves me so much money then. I repeat the market has not got real competition. The problem is the pricing in shortage etc as has been found overseas. The issue was investigated some years ago and it was found that the generators were extracting monopoly profits. They still are.
I have been a CEO of a major player in the market,I watched the arrangements to reduce competition and they are still there.

[Jantar]

Great explanations,thanks. How come flick saves me so much money then. ....

Flick have a great pricing model for those who can afford uncertainty in market pricing. They charge wholesale rates plus a markup, and that markup includes the Transpower and network charges. Thus Flick are one of the few retailers who allow you to see just what proportion of their bill is actual energy and what portion is all the add on from other sources.