Electricity providers - Hawkes Bay??

Just wondering if anyone has any tips on what company is good/which ones to avoid for electricity. There are so many to choose from! 

Moving into our house on July 18th and need to figure this out. The house is insulated and has a heat pump. Generally, there will be somebody home all day, so not sure what kind of plan to sign up for.

Have you tried this?:

https://www.powerswitch.org.nz/powerswitch

Thanks! 

We use, and have used for the last 5 years, Contact Energy. Have had no problems with them

That's the one that came up on the survey we took for recommendations. Can't wait til we get into our house BTW!  We'll be really close to Park Island, so can walk to the Hawkes Bay games! ?

Another good thing to know is that all Electricity providers in Hawkes Bay purchase their energy from Unison Energy who manage the Hawkes Bay Power Consumers Trust( http://www.unison.co.nz/tell-me-about/unison-group...) so you may get a nice rebate every year if they make a profit. Last few years it has been a rebate of about $150. 

WIN!!!

Nice!!

Powershop is pretty much accepted as being the best, at least in Wellington. You have to micromanage your power though. Another good one is Flick.

Also, when it comes tome to chose phone and internet provider take a look at NOW. 

We have been with them for about 4 years and have no complaints

www.nownz.co.nz

Trustpower any good? Want to change from Genisis.

This is going to be unpopular but Spark and their subsidiary big pipe are the best ISP's, they purchase the most bandwidth so suffer less slow downs during peak hours.

Interesting comparison of different ISPs here

Signed up with Now. Getting the unlimited plan. Can't wait to have proper internet access again. We're on a dodgy coupon bases system now. It's driving me insane.

No fiber optics on our street-to-be at this point, so going with VDSL.

We messaged them, but got no response. We then signed up with Genesis and Contact called us literally half an hour later. Hopefully Genesis won't be too horrible. We're locked in for a year. If we hate them, we'll switch.

Also, we signed with NOW. Have been hearing good things about them.

Yikes...we ended up signing with Genesis, as the other companies didn't get back to us. Hopefully Genesis aren't too awful. Your post isn't exactly filling me with optimism! Curious as to why you wish to change. We're locked in for a year now.

As with most companies, consumer experience can vary greatly depending who you happen to deal with. I have been with Genesis for years now, Power and Gas,  and have never had any problems. Are they the cheapest? Probably not this month but they may be next month.  I am probably lazy but I guess I just cant be arsed looking all over for the "best deal" , which will probably only be the best deal for a week. Maybe I am a dying breed but if a company provides me with reasonable service and I am not being massively ripped off, I am a loyal customer. 

One of the staff at our motel recommended them. They were the only one that got back to us within a day. Some of the others didn't respond at all.

It does seem that there are massive amounts of "deals of the week" type of scenarios out there.

I'd agree with this, I was with Genesis for 7 years, service was good, price was never horrible, not necessarily the best. What finally made me leave was one bad moment. When I went to move house they told me there would be a $150 BOND to be paid as a "new customer" even though I had been with them for 7 years through 3 house moves for some reason I was a new customer. That was it for me, now with Energy Direct. But in 7 years that was my only ever complaint about Genesis.

Wow, that is bad that they'd want a bond after all that time. That would annoy us to the point of switching too. 

Genisis are at the higher end of prices, guess thats to help Jenny Shipleys wages and bonuses. Been with them but last August I got a $532.00 power bill because of the heaters we were using. Every other power bill was around 300 in winter. Place we maybe going into has gas hot watet and transpower offer that plus internet and phone and discounts.

We're on Genesis in Wellington and we have a deal where they've estimated our annual consumption and divided it by 12 so we don't get massive bills in winter. It works well, we've been doing it for about 5 years and we are currently around $250 in credit.

Now offers a great deal for me. Ufb 30x 10 megs per sec, phone, 1 hour calling anywhere in nz, wiring maintenence $98 per month.

Wow, that's high! Hope we won't get any bills like that!

The lady who signed us up said we could switch plans if we wanted. It's impossible for us to guess how much electricity we'll be using. 

I think we're around that same price. Unlimited internet plus phone. We use long distance cards for calls, so it should work out.

As per the internet thread, I am trying to get a bundle deal going as it can work out cheaper, yet NOW is offering a good deal and I only had to press one button to speak to a human voice.

With powershop you can hedge your power consumption and pre-purchase at cheaper rates for winter if you're worried about high costs.

First bill came and was $407. Just about went into cardiac arrest. Phoned them and they swapped us to a different plan (high user instead of classic) and new bill was $365. Also told me that there was a $250 discount for first month.

Still seems high for insulated house. We run a heat pump and have an oil heater on the lowest setting at night. We don't have a dryer, don't use a dishwasher or even a microwave. 

We're locked in with them for a year, but will definitely look to switch next July.

Wow, that is high. We have two of us in a 3 bedroom house with Genesis and average about $80 per month. Then again we have a log burner and gas hot water. But even when we had a hot water tank it was still only about $130-$150 pm.

Maybe we are just North American wusses. We are used to being warm inside, so probably run our heat pump and oil heater at higher than the average Kiwi would.

Still, I think we picked a bad provider. Will see about switching once our year is up.

Are those eco heaters a better option? I keep hearing good things about them, but husband is not convinced. It's just basically for the bedroom.

Welcome to NZ.  How are you finding it so far?

Yeah they seem to be a better option. Don't get a bedroom hot but take the chill off and are a lot cheaper to run

I have them dotted around the house and as above, they take the chill off BUT if it is a cold house, you'll need other heating sources.

We find that for the really cold day, trundling out a gas bottle heater works wonders and you can chuck the bottle outside during summer to power the BBQ. 

You read the instructions on those gas heaters? Must be in a well ventilated place... what's the point?

One thing that you will find about NZ is that we have to much of everything, too much food, too much electricity. Because of this you'd think that things would be cheap, but no in a world of oppositeso having more supply than demand means that things are MORE expensive here.

I know there is the cost of shipping and economies of scale, etc. But we don't import electricity.

Thanks, it's really beautiful here, and I can't wait to see more of the country! Hawke's Bay seems to get a lot of sun compared to other places from what I've seen on the news. First few months were stressful as we tried to get a house. Eventually it all worked out though, and we really liked the motel we were staying at. We actually found out about it from someone on here...so thanks Yellow Fever!!

Obviously, missing my family and friends in Canada, but it's awesome to have Skype!

Will have to look into that for next winter. House is insulated so it should do the trick having one in the bedroom.

We have a heat pump, but the heat doesn't get to the bedroom. Figured we just needed a small bit of heat in it and we'd be fine. Small bit of heat = a big bit of cash!

It's definitely pricey! Now I'm thinking we should have gone with Contact instead of Genesis. Previous owners used them. It's just that we were in a major hurry to get the power sorted, and Genesis were the first ones that got back to us. Maybe Contact would be the same though. It's hard to say.