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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. What is Trustpower?

reference: Trustpower

Trustpower is a power company (an electric company) in New Zealand, and Trustpower is one of the “Big5” in the New Zealand’s electricity industry.

Trustpower supplies electricity, gas, broadband, landline and mobile services, and the company details are as below.

Head Office	Tauranga
Operate from	1993
Main Shareholders	Infratil Ltd(*): 51.0% Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust: 26.8%
Service area	North Island: Electricity & Gas (except Far North) South Island: Electricity only
Customer (electricity)	roughly 270,000
Market share (electricity)	Ranked 5th place in the market (roughly 12% share in the NZ’s electric market)
Number of employee	around 850

(*) Infratil Limited is a New Zealand-based infrastructure investment company. The Company owns and operates infrastructure businesses and investments in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Europe. (reference: Market Screener)

Top5 companies (“Big5”) in the electric industry 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

(reference: Electricity Authority, as of March 2021)

2. What is the advantages of Trustpower?

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

• One stop shop for Electricity, Gas, Broadband and Mobile.
• Feeling good and comfortable as a big company

Details of the advantages are as below.

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

If you choose Trustpower, you can easy set up for electricity, gas, broadband and mobile. Of course, It’s ok if you choose only electricity and gas.

You don’t need to spent too much time for research and contact to some companies one by one for electricity, gas, broadband and mobile. This is really good.

For example, you can choose your plan from power(electricity), gas, broadband, phone(landline) and mobile as the following page on Trustpower’s website.

reference: Trustpower

Example 1: plan for electricity

reference: Trustpower

You can check the electric cost, if you input your address into the above blank space.

For example, I input a company address of Trustpower Ltd, then you can see the following electric cost.

reference: Trustpower

It’s very important for you to get to know that which you need to choose [Standard User Rate] or [Low User rate].

Basically, most households in New Zealand are suitable for the standard user category.

(*) Please click [Q1. What is Standard User Rate and Low User Rate?], if you want to know the details about the Standard User Rate and Low User Rate.

Example 2: set plan for electricity and gas

reference: Trustpower

You can choose a set plan (“a bundle plan”) for electricity and gas, but the supply for the gas is not covered all over the New Zealand.

If you input your address into the above blank space on the Trustpower’ website, you can easily find whether you can use the gas provided by Trustpower or not.

reference: Trustpower

Example 3: plans for electricity and broadband

reference: Trustpower

Broadband service provided by Trustpower is Fibre, ADSL and VDSL.

Details of the broadband plan (as of 19/5/2021) are as below.

●Unlimited-base plan

reference: Trustpower (as of 19/5/2021)

●Capped-base plan

reference: Trustpower (as of 19/5/2021)

Example 4: plans for mobile

reference: Trustpower

Price of the mobile plans are $19 – $79 per month depend on GB as below.

reference: Trustpower (as of 19/5/2021)

Then just click the plan you want to choose, so it’s very easy.

2-2. Feeling good and comfortable as a big company

Trustpower is one of the Big5 in the electric market in New Zealand, and it has long history originally from 1915. (reference: Trustpower)

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

Also, Trustpower 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

3. What is the disadvantages of Trustpower?

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

1. Basically, 2year fixed-term contract (breaking cost may be applied).
2. Review by the Trustpower’s customer is not good comparing to the other power companies.
3. 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. Basically, 2year fixed-term contract (with breaking cost)

Basically most of the plans for electricity, gas, broadband and mobile offered by Trustpower are “2year fixed-term contract”.

Trustpower often offer a free joining reward and a big discount, but you have to keep the contract at least 2years to enjoy the special offer.

If you want to finish the contract or you want to switch to another power company less than 2years, you have to pay a breaking fee(an exit fee) as a kind of the penalty.

reference: Trustpower

3-2. Review by the Trustpower’s customer is not good comparing to the other power companies.

Trustpower rated as the worst performer in the survey(research) of 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, it’s good for you to get to know about the following facts before you make a contract with Trustpower.

• Just “43%” of Trustpower customers were happy with the service they were getting.
• Trustpower’s rating was significantly lower than the industry average of 52%.
• The no.1 – no.3 of the ranking among was smaller brands.
• (Contact Energy, one of the Big5, also just 45%.)

As above, basically the scores of the big5 (have long history) are lower, and the scores of the smaller and younger brands are higher.

So it’s good for you to check the plans of the smaller electric brands, which have a good review, too.

Q. Which power companies rated as the excellent performer in the survey?

Flick Electric got the highest rating with a satisfaction score of 76%. (Trustpower 43% / the industry average 52% )

• Flick Electric  (76%)
• Nova Energy  (74%)
• Electric Kiwi  (71%)

Basically if you choose one from these 3 smaller electric brands, I believe that you will not feel too much stress about their service and pricing.

Also, Flick Electric and Electric Kiwi are winners of Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice award.*
(*The People’s Choice award is given to retailers that rate above average and meet Consumer NZ’s other performance criteria.)

3-3. It is difficult to change to another power company to get cheaper electric bills

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

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

As above, most of the people don’t want to pay additional costs, so basically they have no option to wait until 2years past.

4. What is the difference between Trustpower and other power companies

It’s good for your to compare (and check) the difference between Trustpower and other popular electric providers.

Top10 of the power(electric) companies in New Zealand

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

reference: Electricity Authority (as of March 2021)

When you are looking for a power company, I believe that it’s most important to choose the power company based on the review(customer’s satisfaction), because you may feel almost the same way.

Based on the result of the comparison of the power companies, I recommend the following 3 power companies.

• Nova Energy
• Electric Kiwi
• Flick Electric

Q. Which power company is the best option for you?

To save your money, it’s the best for you to choose a company which gives you the cheapest electric plan.

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

reference: 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.

reference: 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“.

As far as know, most of the cheapest company is “Electric Kiwi“, so I just introduce Electric Kiwi.

reference: Electric Kiwi

5. Summary

Until here, I explained about Trustpower, the difference between Trustpower and other main power companies in New Zealand, is it useful for you to understand there?

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

• Trustpower is a private power company, and one of the “Big5”. (No.5 place in the New Zealand’s electric industry.)
• Trustpower is a big company and is one stop shop for electricity, gas, broadband, landline and mobile.
• Trustpower rated as the worst performer in the survey(research) of satisfaction with power companies
• Smaller electric brands rated as the excellent performer in the same survey.

Lastly, I’m hoping that you could understand what is Powerswitch and how to find your cheapest electricity plan.

Many thanks to read this page.