Contact Energy｜Is it the best NZ power company for you?

This page give you the best answers for the following questions;

• What is Contact Energy?
• What kinds of services Contact Energy is offering?
• Should I contract with the Contact Energy for power/electricity?
• What is advantages and disadvantages of Contact Energy?

This page is the best for you to understand about these types of questions.

I’m going to explain about Contact Energy one by one as below.

1. What is Contact Energy?
2. What is the advantages of Contact Energy?
3. What is the disadvantages of Contact Energy?
4. Which power company is the best for you?【plus comparison table】

If you read this page, you can easily understand what Contact Energy is and whether Contact Energy is the best company for you or not.

1. What is Contact Energy?

source: Contact Energy

Contact Energy is one of the “Big5” power companies in the New Zealand.

And, Contact Energy supplies electricity, gas and broadband.

Head Office	Wellington
Operate from	1996
Main Shareholders	51%: New Zealand Government 3%: FNZ Custodians Ltd 3%: Forsyth Barr Custodians Ltd
Services	Electricity Gas Broadband
Service area	North Island: Electricity&Gas (except some areas) South Island: Electricity only
Customer (electricity)	over 550,000 customers
Market share (electricity)	No.2 in the NZ’s electric market
Number of employee	over 1,000 employees

Top5 power companies (“Big5”) in New Zealand

Company name	Customer (ICP count*)	Market share (ICP share)
Genesis Energy	490,000	22%
Contact Energy	420,000	19%
Meridian Energy	340,000	15%
Mercury NZ	330,000	15%
Trustpower	270,000	12%

(*) ICP (Installation Control Point) : Each property has a unique ICP number identifying it on the New Zealand electricity network.
(*) ICP count : the total number of ICP

(source: Electricity Authority, as of March 2021)

2. What is the advantages of Contact Energy?

Based on my research, the 3 advantages of Contact Energy are as below.

1. One stop shop for electricity, gas and broadband.
2. Stable operation as a big company.
3. Get a reward and a referral campaign of inviting your friends.

Details of the advantage are as below.

2-1. One stop shop for electricity, gas and broadband.

Contact Energy is one of the major providers for electricity gas and broadband.

So, if you choose Contact Energy, it’s very easy and convenient for you to arrange these services all at once.

All electric plans of Contact Energy are as below.

• ① Simple plan
• ② Bundle plans (set plan)
• ③ Plans with rewards
• ④ AA smartfuel plan

I’ll explain each electric plan one by one.

① Simple plan

Plan	Price/Reward	Term	Other
Basic	Simple energy rate	No fixed-term (No break fees)	Broadband: can be added from $89.99/month

② Bundle plans

Plan	Price/Reward	Term	Other
Broadband Bundle (Power+Gas+Broadband)	Broadband: $59.99/month	No fixed-term (No break fees)	Unlimited data One bill each month
Broadband Bundle (Power+Broadband)	Broadband: $64.99/month	No fixed-term (No break fees)	Unlimited data One bill each month
Simplicity Bundle* (Power+Gas)	No daily gas charges (only pay for the gas you use)	No fixed-term (No break fees)	Broadband: can be added from $89.99/month

(*) Only available for natural gas customers in the North Island

③ Plans with rewards

Plan	Price/Reward	Term	Other
Everyday bonus fixed (2% discount on your energy charges)	$150 discount for your first bill	Fixed-term (with break fees)	Fixed energy rates keep 2year+. Broadband: can be added from $89.99/month
Bach	No daily charge at your bach (Only pay for what you use there)	No fixed-term (No break fees)

④ AA smartfuel plan

Plan	Price/Reward	Term	Other
Fuel rewards plus	30cents/litre discount of fuel once every month* (Max 50L) or turn into carbon offsets or Qantas Points.	Fixed-term (with break fees)	Fixed energy rates keep 2year+ Broadband: can be added from $89.99/month

2-2. Stable operation as a big company

Contact Energy is one of the “Big5” in the electric industry in New Zealand.

So you don’t need to worry about the credibility as a provider, and Contact Energy will keep providing the electricity, gas etc in the future, too.

Also, Contact Energy has own power generation facilities as below.

• 38 hydro power stations (roughly 9% of New Zealand’s hydro capacity)
• It can provide roughly 4.4% of New Zealand’s electricity

2-3. Get rewards and a referral campaign of inviting your friends.

Contact Energy give some rewards for you.

• 2% fixed energy discount rate every month
• $150 discount your first bill

And, you can use a referral campaign of inviting your friends (the $100 credit including GST each for you and your friend).

Q. What is “a referral campaign” ?

If your family or a friend join Contact Energy based on your invitation, you and the person you invited can get a $100 discount each.

The process of the referral campaign is easy as below.

1. Create your personal link and promotion code with friends
2. Share your link or code with your friends
3. Get your discount

source: Contact Energy

So, you may get more than $100 discount (credit), if more than 2 friends will join Contact energy. It’s must be a good deal.

3. What is the disadvantages of Contact Energy?

Based on my research, the 2 disadvantages of Contact Energy are as below.

1. Customer satisfaction of Contact Energy is not good enough.
2. It is not easy to switch to another power company to get cheaper electric bills

The details of the disadvantages are as below.

3-1. Customer satisfaction of Contact Energy is not good enough.

Here is a result of the survey “Customer Satisfaction with power companies” conducted by Consumer NZ in 2020.

(*) Consumer NZ is an independent, non-profit organisation to offer New Zealanders a fairer deal and established in 1959.

Based on the survey, “only 45%” of Contact Energy’s customers were happy with the service they were getting.

source: Consumer NZ

Actually, Contact Energy’s rating was lower than the industry average of “52%”.

Q. Which companies have better customer satisfaction?

The following 2 companies were selected by Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice award*.

• Flick Electric
• Electric Kiwi

*The People’s Choice award is given to retailers that rate above average and meet Consumer NZ’s other performance criteria.

So I recommend that you choose “Flick Electric“.

I’ll explain about Flick Electric soon in this page.

3-2. It is not easy to change to another power company to get cheaper electric bills

Once you make a contract with Contact Energy, it is not easy to switch to another power company to get cheaper electric bills based on the following reasons.

• Some plans are 2 year fixed-term contract (with a breaking fee: $150)
• If you stop (terminate) the contract of power, the other costs for broadband etc will back to the standard price.

【Important】Some plans offer “2 year fixed-term contract”

Contact Energy’s some plans for electricity, gas and broadband are “2 year fixed-term contract”.

So you need to know that if you end the contract within 2 years, you have to pay a “breaking fee” ($150).

4. Which power company is the best for you?【plus comparison table】

It is important to think about [customer satisfaction] or [cheapest price in the area you live in], when you choose a power company.

I recommend that you should choose a company

• [Best customer satisfaction]・・To choose “Flick Electric“.
• [Cheapest price]・・Use “Powerswitch” and find the cheapest plan for you.

Also, I’ll show you a comparison table of the most popular 10 power companies in NZ at the end of this part.

4-1. [Best customer satisfaction] ・・Choose “Flick Electric”

Flick Electric is a smaller power company, and the first energy retailer started from 2014.

Flick Electric buys cheaper power directly from the wholesale electricity market, and offer electricity with cheaper cost than big power companies.

It is very important that Flick Electric is the No.1 company based on the survey for customer satisfaction of power companies, so you don’t need to worry about the electric bill any more.

Flick Electric is 100% has partnership with Z Energy since 2018, so I believe that Flick Electric has enough credit to make a contract.

Head Office	Wellington
Operate from	2014
Main Shareholders	100%: Z Energy Limited (established in 1959)
Service are	Electricity only
Customer (electricity)	26,000
Market share (electricity)	roughly 1% share in the NZ’s electric market
Number of employee	–
Payment Method	Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly Bank transfer or Credit card

4-2. [Cheapest price]・・Use “Powerswitch”

Powerswitch is the best way for you to find the cheapest electric plan.

source: Powerswitch

Powerswitch is the best website in New Zealand to find which power company and pricing plan is the cheapest for you.

What you have to do is just to input some information (your address, number of your family, type of heating products/systems you use and etc), then you can get to know the cheapest plan.

For example, the result will come up as a list such as the following image.

source: Powerswitch

So, it’s very easy to understand that which company and plan you should choose.

(*) If you want to know more details about Powerswith, please check another page “What is POWERSWITCH? The best way to find the cheapest electricity plan“.

4-3. Comparison table of the most popular 10 power companies in NZ

It’s good for you to get to know the difference between Contact Energy and other popular electric providers.

(*) You can scroll the following chart left to right.

source: Electricity Authority (as of March 2021)

6. Summary

Until here, I explained about Contact Energy‘s advantages and disadvantages, the difference between Contact Energy and other main power companies in NZ – is it useful for you?

As a summary, I write down about the main points of this page as below.

• Contact Energy is one of the “Big5”. (No.2 place in the NZ’s electric industry.)
• Contact Energy is one stop shop for electricity, gas and broadband.
• Customer’s satisfaction of Contact Energy was lower than the industrial average.

And, I recommend the following power companies and website, so please check it !!

• “Flick Electric“・・・Best customer satisfaction of NZ’s power companies.
• “Powerswitch“・・・You can get to know the cheapest electric plan in the area you live in.

Many thanks to read this page.

Please let your family and friends about this page, if you like.