Residential tariff type trends

Report notes

1. This report is based on data provided by Consumer NZ from its tariff database that underpins its Powerswitch price comparison service at www.powerswitch.org.nz. This dataset is broadly representative of generally available pricing plans for the residential market over time, noting that:

   • not all retailers make all of their tariffs available to Powerswitch, ie only the generally available tariffs are typically supplied
   • some retailers that do supply tariffs have not done so continuously through time
   • the retailers that do provide tariff data to Powerswitch supply electricity to about 97% of the residential market
   • not all plans are available to all consumers and/or metering configurations.
   For more information about the Powerswitch website visit www.powerswitch.org.nz/faqs.

2. Plans have been categorised under the following types:

   • Time of use: These plans have set tariffs for certain periods of the day or week. The consumer can be rewarded for shifting power consumption to a less expensive time.
   • Spot: These plans reflect the underlying wholesale electricity market conditions at the time. The consumer can be rewarded for shifting power consumption to a less expensive time.
   • Controlled: These plans allow a third party (usually the distribution network) to temporarily turn off specific components in the home, most frequently the water heater. The benefit to the third party will usually be recognised by providing the consumer with a lower tariff rate.
   • Uncontrolled: These plans have set tariffs that do not reward any load shifting or control.

3. Availability of tariffs does not imply that consumers have necessarily elected to sign up to use the tariffs.

4. From time to time, and for a variety of reasons, a retailer may temporarily cease acquiring new customers even though their tariff offerings remain in the Powerswitch database.

5. The report does not show how many consumers are on each available plan – we do not have that information. The default view makes no attempt to weight or give consideration to the number of consumers in an area that might be in a position to take up the available pricing plans. As such, a particular plan type in a small network area will contribute as much weight to the resulting tariff trend report as, say, a commonly adopted plan in the greater Auckland region.

6. The ICP-weighted view adjusts the proportion of plans by type by considering the number of ICPs that might be able to access a given pricing plan through their own retailer. Without this adjustment, a plan available to just a small number of ICPs within a region would be treated the same as a plan available to tens of thousands of ICPs within the same region. For example, consider a retailer with a 99% market share offering only uncontrolled plans and another retailer in the same region with only a 1% market share offering only time of use plans. Without the ICP weighting, these two plans would show a 50/50 split between uncontrolled and time of use offerings.