Ecotricity｜Is it the best NZ power company for you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. What is Ecotricity?

source: Ecotricity

Ecotricity said that Ecotricity is NZ’s cleanest and greenest electricity power company.

Ecotricity’s electricity is 100% renewable energy – Wind, Hydro and Solar.

So if you have highly concern about ecosystem and global environmental issues etc, Ecotricity is good for you.

Head Office	Auckland
Operate from	2015
Main Shareholders	60%: Genesis Energy Ltd 40%: Gentricity Ltd
Services	Electricity Electric cars related service
Service are	All of NZ
Number of employee	Around 10 – 50 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 Ecotricity?

Based on my research, the 2 advantages of Ecotricity are as below.

1. One of the best eco-friendly power companies in NZ
   
2. Easy to calculate your monthly Ecotricity’s electric costs
3. You can get electric car service, too.

Details of the advantage are as below.

2-1. One of the best eco-friendly power companies in NZ

source: Ecotricity

Ecotricity is one of the most eco-friendly power companies in NZ, and their electricity come from Wind, Hydro and Solar energy.

And, Ecotricity is the NZ’s only 100% carbon-zero certified electricity.

source: Ecotricity

2-2. Easy to calculate your monthly electric costs

Ecotricity has 2 electric plans, so you need to choose [ Lower user plan ] or [Standard user plan].

	Low user plan	Standard user plan
Guideline	Some of households in NZ	Most households in NZ
It’s good for	1 or 2 person Small energy efficient homes	Families Houses that use many electric heating equipments
Your usage for 1year	Less than 8000 kWh/year (9000 for those in the South Island)	More than 8000 kWh/year (9000 for those in the South Island)

How to calculate your monthly electric costs

If you input the following information into the power calculation form, you can get to know electric costs.

• kWh usage (for example, monthly basis)
• Number of days
• Percentage Off-peak
• Percentage On-peak
• Solar export (if it is available.)

(*) Some people may feel not easy to get to know about (1) kWh, (2) Percentages of Off-peek and On-peak.

【Lower user plan】

source: Ecotricity

【Standard user plan】

source: Ecotricity

2-3. You can get electric car service, too.

You can get the following Ecotricity’s services related with electric cars.

• NZ’s best electric vehicle buyers guide (on Ecotricity’s website)
• Eco tec video channel (on Ecotricity’s website)
• supply the two main charging infrastuctures in NZ

source: Ecotricity

3. What is the disadvantages of Ecotricity?

Based on my research, the 2 disadvantage of Ecotricity are as below.

1. There are some power companies with higher customer satisfaction

The details of the disadvantages are as below.

3-1. There are some power companies with higher customer satisfaction

As far as I tried, I could not find any survey and data about Ecotricity’s customer satisfaction in 2021.

But, based on the survey “Customer Satisfaction with power companies” by Consumer NZ in 2021, “Powershop” is No.1 among major power companies in NZ.

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

source: Consumer NZ

So I’ll explain about Powershop in the next chapter.

4. Which power company is the cheapest 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]・・”Powershop“.
• [Cheapest price finding tool]・・”Powerswitch“

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] ・・”Powershop”

source: Powershop

Powershop is a smaller power company, and No.1 customer satisfaction among major power companies in NZ in 2021 based on the survey by Consumer NZ.

I believe that you can enjoy price and service by Powershop, because Based on the survey, the score of “value for money” is 63% (this score is much higher than average of the electric industry).

Also, Meridian Energy (one of the 5 biggest power company in NZ) owned 100% share of Powershop, so you don’t need to worry about Powershop.

It’s good for you to check Powershop’s official website.

Head Office	Wellington
Operate from	2009
Main Shareholders	100%: Meridian Energy
Service	Electricity only
Service area	All of NZ
Customer	around 95,000 customers
Number of employee	Over 200 employees

4-2. [Cheapest price finding tool]・・”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 Ecotricity 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 Ecotricity’s advantages and disadvantages, the difference between Ecotricity 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.

• Ecotricity is one of the best eco-friendly electric companies in NZ.
• It is good for you to join Ecotricity, if you are highly interested in global environment.
• If you are interested in [customer satisfaction] or [cheapest price], it is good for you to check other power companies.

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

• “Powershop“・・・Best customer satisfaction among the NZ’s major 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.