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Thread: Fair-Go - Cost of electricity in NZ

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    NB Canada to Dargaville, NZ
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    241

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    Near as I can figure the lady in the fair go story is running a 2000Watt heater.

    Unless I am calculating/doing math wrong -

    2000W x 13hrs/day = 26000Watts a day x 30days = 780,000Watts per month / 1000Watts (1kw) = 780kw x 31.5 (.315) cents per kw = $245.70 a month.

    Since we bought our house (in May) the power company has been doing estimated billing based off last year. I saw the power guy come up and do a visual reading this August, at which time I told my wife get ready for a big power bill in Sept =S

    Our last bill for August was $760, that's a lot...but not when I think about it. We had 3 electric heaters going in July. I made an effort to turn em off when not needed, ran them at 750W setting and not the 2200W setting. We got a wood stove installed in Aug.

    In Canada even with a wood pellet stove to help heat the house and the electric base board heating....wasn't uncommon for our electric bill during Dec, Jan, Feb (dead of winter) to be $450/month. Summer months $220.

    Doesn't take much to eat the watts. One average computer (75W-150W idling) running 24/7 cost about 20-40 bucks a month.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    United States
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    192

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    I think my miscalculation/confusion stemmed from the fact that in the US we don't have 2200W portable heaters. Ones that work in our normal outlets max out at 1500W. So the portable radiators that I am used to are only 7 fins. The 12 fin ones require a special outlet (I think the same one I use to run my 220V electric clothes dryer.) They must put out a lot of heat

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Chch, NZ
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    2,226

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    So the portable radiators that I am used to are only 7 fins
    Our Delonghi 7 fin oil heater draws 2kW so it not necessary how many fins that determines the total power use. The lack of such heaters in America is more to do with houses there being centrally heated. There's very little demand for such product and normally, houses are never kept that cold from the start (ie. takes a lot more kWs to move a cold 12C room to 22C than from 18 to 22C).

    A kWh costs currently in average a little less than 20 cents, i.e. NZD. Add 1.00 dollar for metre rent per day and let's say it is 20 cents. That makes it around 0.12 EUR, 0.10 GBP and 0.16 USD.
    I did a bit more searching, and per this report the average cost per KWH for 8/11 ranged from 25-33C/KWH, up about 30% over the past 3-5 years. So if you go with 28c, that comes out to 22 cents in USD. About 2/3rds of the amount I extrapolated from that news report. So something is not right, since they said running 1 heater 13hrs a day costs $255. That would mean it is a 4000W radiator, which I don't believe exist
    I tend not to use exchange rates as they are distorting (because it ends up factoring other variables like wages etc.).

    You have to add 15% GST and the daily line connection charge - Genesis came back with a 31 cents figure probably because she lives rural where rates are higher than in the city. Also she may not be running it 13 hours a day - in an uninsulated house that is very drafty, she may be running it 18 hours a day.

    We discussed it already occasionally: Electricity 'is' CHEAP here in NZ! It just depends where you are from.
    Please do us a favour and provide the basis to which you compare it!
    Germany, Italy and Sweden aren't the centre of the world population. If you add up the rest of the western world population where power is considerably cheaper, then yes power is expensive in NZ.

    As a matter of interest, my power bill from Genesis last month was $122 after prompt payment discount. I'm in Christhchurch which is a LOT colder than up in Auckland and I have 5 heat pumps in this house. If power prices doubled in 2 or 3 years time, it wouldn't hurt me because i'm already heavily invested in energy saving in building this house.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Vancouver, BC > Auckland
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    156

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    Quote Originally Posted by ralf-nz View Post
    Electricity 'is' CHEAP here in NZ! It just depends where you are from.
    It does depend on where you come from. My last bill for my apartment in Vancouver was for 292 kWh of power and totaled $28.19 including taxes. My bill for the Auckland apartment was for only 182 kWh (we were back in Canada most of the month) but even after a 22% online discount with Contact, the total is $63.28. I suppose that just says that Vancouver has very low power rates.

    The worrying thing for me about the Fair Go episode is that Genesis says the heater is the problem. Genesis numbers for running it 12 hrs a day would be $255. If she ran the heater 24 hrs, that would be $510. But her bill was almost $800. Where did the extra power go? The explanation from Genesis seems to highlight that there might be a problem with the meters. Do they have independent testing of power meters as they do with petrol pumps?

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    United States
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    192

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    Millieandme, here is the comparison list again:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electri...ice_comparison


    Canada is by far one of the cheapest nations in terms of electricity costs. They pay 3X-6X as much in the UK and Western Europe what you paid in Canada. Sort of the way things are for gasoline(petrol) in the U.S. as compared to Europe.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Stanley Bay, Auckland, NZ
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    1,480

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    I'm with Powershop so my daily rental is all merged in with my unit cost; I've also got a smart meter so can see usage day by day. At the moment my average cost is 25.8c per kWh. It should get cheaper in summer per unit and we'll use less but the cost of electricity at the moment for a three bed house with standard immersion hot water tank, some insulation, a bath and 2 showers a day and 4 heat pumps (3 running at night, 1 during the day) making it all nice and cosy is around $8 a day on average over the whole winter.

    When the wife and kids were away so it was just me and most appliances were off it was down to $3 a day but I haven't included that period in the $8 average above.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Chch, NZ
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    Canada is by far one of the cheapest nations in terms of electricity costs. They pay 3X-6X as much in the UK and Western Europe what you paid in Canada.
    That's not going to stay cheap for long. Apparently the gov't wants to breakup the power distribution and allow more privatisation. However, they're having great resistance in getting the 1st basic step - having smart metres installed in homes. News all over BC has residents stamping their feet and petitioning against such metres going into their homes.

    Vancouver and the rest of Canada aren't good examples because it's climate is quite different to the rest of BC. While in the central interior they can see -40C wind chills, in Vancouver, it's barely below 0C. So the reasoning for having cheap power in Canada is more to do with the cold climate (actually the HUGE requirement to keep warm from the extreme cold) and not how cheap electricity is in the lower mainland area.

    I considered Powershop but their day / night rates were not clear enough. Also i'm not bothered to keep track of buying pre-pay power. What I mean is when you top up to pay for power, I would expect 1 for night rate and 1 for day rate but their pre-pay packages only show the high day rate pricing.

    I'll admit, my power bill is unreasonably low compared to the rest of my peers. But we have power saving habits like setting the washing machine & dishwasher, and hot water heatpump, on at night. Come to think, 4 adults in the house and 1 baby so we use a lot of hot water.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    UK to USA to Waikato, NZ
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    1,383

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    We have been on our rental X 1 month, OH only with 2 wall heaters X 1 week and 4 of us with 2 wall heaters and 1 radiator heater last 3 weeks..on a fair as we just moved from high temps in USA, still adjusting.
    Our electric bill(electric for everything) was $140 after $60 prompt pay discount.

    So less than we thought and well worth using prompt pay discount.

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Chch, NZ
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    As an update and I know we're heading closer to summer, our Genesis power bill last month came to $99.29 after online prompt payment. Because of daylight savings and longer daylight hours, our power usages has shifted more towards after 9pm (night rate). How much lower my power bill will be? I'm betting it won't be a lot less.

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