Electric Kiwi｜Is it the best NZ power company for you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

1. What is Electric Kiwi?

source: Electric Kiwi

Electric Kiwi is one of the popular smaller power companies, and Electric Kiwi is one of the winners of “Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice award” in 2020.

Electric Kiwi buys electricity in the wholesale electricity market and supplies it to their customers.

So, Electric Kiwi is a retailer and does not have their own electric facilities.

Head Office	Auckland
Operate from	2014
Main Shareholders	100%: The Energy Collective Ltd
Services	Electricity only.
Service area	All of NZ
Customer (electricity)	around 76,000 customers
Market share (electricity)	2% of the NZ’s electric market
Number of employee	around 40 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 Electric Kiwi?

Based on my research, the 4 advantages of Electric Kiwi are as below.

1. Cheaper electric price
2. “Free hour” of off-peak power everyday
3. Easy to calculate your annual savings
4. One of the best customer satisfaction among major power companies

Details of the advantage are as below.

2-1. Cheaper electric price

Basically Electric Kiwi’s electric price is cheaper than ones of other big power companies.

Actually, you can get to know the cheapest and cheaper price in the are you live in, if you check the website of “Powerswitch“.

For example, based on the result of the following cheaper price, Electric Kiwi is the cheapest as below.

source: Powerswitch

Q. What is the electric plan of Electric Kiwi ?

Electric Kiwi offer the following 4 plans.

(*) It’s good for you that there is “no break fee”, if you choose one 1 year fixed-term.

Plan name	Details
Kiwi	Everyday great electric rates No fixed-term
Loyal Kiwi	Slightly better rate. 1 year fixed-term, but “NO break fee”
MoveMaster	Better off-peak rates Half price at night (11pm-7am) A 12.5c/kWh solar buyback rate
Stay Ahead 200	Automatically be topped up by $200. “A $20 top-up bonus” for each $200 top-up

2-2. “Free hour” of off-peak power everyday

source: Electric Kiwi

You can get an hour of free off-peak power everyday !!

You can choose the free hour, and change anytime if you like.

The off-peak time slots:
[ 9am – 5pm ]
and
[ 9pm – 7am ]

Average of savings is roughly “10%”, and you will be able to get the following savings.

How much savings ?	Details.
4%	Do nothing change.
10%	Run your washing machine and dishwasher during your Hour of Power five times a week.
12%	Run your washing machine and dishwasher during your Hour of Power every day.
15%	Run your washing machine, dishwasher and take a shower during your Hour of Power every day.

2-3. Easy to calculate your annual savings

source: Electric Kiwi

You can get to know how much is the savings for 1 year after you join Electric Kiwi.

If you input your address in the form of the website, you can get to know the savings.

2-4. One of the best customer satisfaction

You need to know that Electric Kiwi has one the best customer satisfaction based on 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.

source: Consumer NZ

So I believe that you can enjoy Electric Kiwi’s services with no problem.

Based on the survey, 2 of the “Big5” (Contact Energy and Trustpower) are lower than the average(“52%”) of the electric industry.

3. What is the disadvantages of Electric Kiwi?

Based on my research, the 3 disadvantages of Electric Kiwi are as below.

1. No Gas and Broadband service.
2. Debit card and credit card, only.

The details of the disadvantages are as below.

3-1. No Gas and Broadband service

If you want to make a contract for Gas and/or Broadband together (as a set plan / as a bundle plan), Electric Kiwi does not suit for you, because of no gas and broadband service.

The following companies offer Gas and Broadband too, so please check their official websites, if you like.

Power company name	Gas	Broadband
Nova Energy	✓	✓
Contact Energy	✓	✓
Trustpower	✓	✓
Genesis Energy	✓	–

(*) I recommend “Nova Energy” among the above 4 companies, because Nova Energy has better customer satisfaction as explained later.

3-2. Debit card or Credit card, only.

You can pay only using a debit card or credit card, because Electric Kiwi wants to minimise their operation costs as much as possible.

Basically other major power companies are ok for Internet banking, but you can not pay using it for Electric Kiwi.

If you want to pay using internet banking manually, I recommend you choose “Nova Energy“, because Nova Energy is one of the best customer power companies too.

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]・・Choose “Flick Electric“.
• [With Gas and/or Broadband] ・・Choose “Nova Energy“
• [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.

【Flick Electric: Company information】

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. [With Gas and/or Broadband] ・・Choose “Nova Energy”

source: Nova Energy

Nova Energy is a smaller power company, and it is the No.1 company in customer satisfaction based on the survey made by Consumer NZ.

If you choose Nova Energy, I believe that you can enjoy their services with no problem!!

You cant choose a set plan of electric and Gas/Broadband, but you can not choose an electric only plan. (all plans are in the following table.)

【All plans provided by Nova Energy】

(*) The following table can be scrolled to the right.

【Nove Energy: Company information】

Head Office	Wellington
Operate from	2012
Main Shareholders	100%: Todd Petroleum Mining Corporation Ltd
Service are	Electricity Gas Broadband Phone (Landline Only)
Customer (electricity)	–
Market share (electricity)	roughly 4% share in the NZ’s electric market
Number of employee	–
Payment Method	Weekly, Fortnightly Direct debit, Credit/Debit card, Automatic payment, internet banking, NZ Post shop etc.

4-3. [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“.

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

It’s good for you to get to know the difference between Electric Kiwi 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 Electric Kiwi’s advantages and disadvantages, the difference between Electric Kiwi 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.

• Electric Kiwi’s plan is Electric only.
• Electric Kiwi is one of the winners of “Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice award“
• You can pay using Debt card or Credit card only.

Smaller and newer power companies have better customer satisfaction.

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

• “Flick Electric“・・・Best customer satisfaction of NZ’s power companies.
• “Nova Energy“・・・This is the best, if you need Gas and/or Broadband, too.
• “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.