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

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

• What is Meridian Energy (“Meridian”)?
• What kinds of services Meridian is offering?
• Should I made a contract with the Meridian for power/electricity?
• What is advantages and disadvantages of Meridian?

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

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

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

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

 

1. What is Meridian?

source: Meridian

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

Meridian is very stable company, because The New Zealand Government has a 51% share of the company.

Head Office	Wellington
Operate from	1998
Main Shareholders	51%: New Zealand Government 27%: New Zealand Central Securities Depository Ltd. 4%: Custodial Services Ltd.
Services	Electricity only.
Service area	All of New Zealand
Customer (electricity)	around 340,000 customers
Market share (electricity)	No.3 in the NZ’s electric market
Number of employee	around 960 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 Meridian?

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

1. Stable operation as a big company.
2. You can get a price comparison against your current electric bill.
3. You can get rewards (“credit”).

Details of the advantage are as below.

2-1. Stable operation as a big company

source: Meridian

Meridian is one of the “Big5”, and has strong relationship with The New Zealand Government.

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

Also, Meridian has own power generation facilities, and the installed capacities in NZ are as below.

• Hydroelectric： 2,338MW
• Wind　　　　：    417MW
• Total             ： 2,754MW

2-2. You can get a price comparison against your current electric bill.

You can get to know that how much you can save on you monthly electric bills.

It is easy that you only need to do the following things.

• [Input]・・・Name / Email address / Phone number
• [Upload]・・・your current electric bill

source: Meridian

Basically you can get a reply from Meridian within 24 hours, so you should try it !!

Q. if you don’t want to upload your current bill ?

In case you want to know an electric price estimation without your current bill, it is ok to input only your address in the following form. [Get a monthly price estimate]

source: Meridian

Basically you can get a reply from Meridian within 24 hours, so you should try it !!

2-3. You can get rewards ($200 credit)

Meridian give you a “$200 credit” for the first bill, if you sign up for 1 year contract.

source: Meridian

3. What is the disadvantages of Meridian?

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

1. No Gas and Broadband service.
2. It is not easy to switch to another power company to get cheaper electric bills
3. Basically smaller power companies have “better customer satisfaction”

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, Meridian 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. It is not easy to change to another power company to get cheaper electric bills

When you choose a plan with “$200 credit”, the plan is basically 1 year fixed-term contract.

So, you need to pay the breaking fee ($200), if you want to stop (terminate) the contract within 1 year.

If you don’t want to pay the creaking fee, you need to keep the contract more than 1 year.

3-3. Basically smaller power companies have “better customer satisfaction”

Unfortunately there is no data of Meridian, but 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.

source: Consumer NZ

As above, 3 of the smaller and newer power companies have higher customer satisfaction, but 2 of the “Big5” have lower one.

Actually, the average of the electric industry is only “52%”, because mainly most of the people feel that electric cost is too expensive.

Q. Which companies have better customer satisfaction?

So I recommend to check the following companies with better customer’s satisfaction/review.

• Flick Electric：Electricity only.
• Nova Energy：Electricity, gas and broadband.
• Electric Kiwi：Electricity only.

I’ll explain about “Flick Electric” and “Nova Energy” soon in this page.

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 Meridian 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 Meridian’s advantages and disadvantages, the difference between Meridian 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.

• Meridian is one of the “Big5”. (No.4 place in the NZ’s electric industry.)
• Meridian is one stop shop for Electricity, Gas and Broadband.
• But there is no plan for electric 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.