Powershop-A new way to buy your electricity?

Filed under Electricity Companys/Plans and Power bills, Energy Efficiency and Power Bills.

February 24th, 2009

A new way of buying electricity was launched last week with the arrival of Powershop.

According to Powershop chief executive Ari Sargent, “Powershop.co.nz offers an easy way to access a range of competitively priced electricity products from a number of providers all available on a single website”.

The age of being tied to a single power company is over. Powershop is the retail electricity revolution everyone has been waiting for since the electricity market was deregulated, Mr Sargent said.

Powershop claims to be able to save most consumers money by buying power at the cheapest spot rates. Customers can also arrange to buy power in advance, and can regularly check on their power accounts by enetering in their meter reading to see if they are in credit or debit on their accounts.

If it is true that customers can buy power at the cheapest going rate this could be a promising development. However, a cautionary note is that Powershop is at present a wholly owned subsidary of Meridian Energy (although there are plans to appoint an independent board). Also we note that some retailers are not included (for example Novagas in Wellington).

If you are interested in learning more see www.powershop.co.nz