Big Power Firms Must Offer Time Pricing
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Your power bill could shrink — but only if you're willing to do your laundry at midnight.
New rules took effect today requiring large power companies to offer time-of-use pricing plans to households and small businesses. The Electricity Authority is now mandating what the big generators have quietly avoided for years: passing on the actual cost of electricity at different times of day.
Energy Minister Simeon Brown put it plainly. "The big power companies generate power for different prices at different times of the day, but those same companies usually sell that power to residential and small business customers at one price, regardless of when they use the power."
"That is unfair," he said.
Under the new plans, pricing splits into three bands. Peak — typically 7am to 10am and 5pm to 9pm — costs the most. Shoulder periods, covering 10am to 5pm and 9pm to 11pm, sit in the middle. Overnight, from 11pm to 7am, prices drop to their lowest. Shift your dishwasher, your hot water cylinder, your EV charger into those quiet hours, and the savings follow.
The rules also extend to solar and battery owners. Households that export power back to the grid during peak times will now be able to receive higher returns for doing so — a meaningful shift for anyone who has already invested in rooftop solar. Brown said this "sits alongside recent changes doubling the export limits for households exporting power back to the grid from 5kW to 10kW."
The minister was careful not to oversell it. "There is no single or overnight fix to achieve this, but there are a number of measures the Government is rolling out to give consumers more control and flexibility over their power usage and bills."
Including, apparently, power that could be free. "Introducing time-of-use plans which can make power cheaper, or even free, during off-peak times, is one of those steps," Brown said.
Whether Southland households — many running heat pumps through a proper winter — can realistically shift enough usage to see material savings is a fair question. The plans are optional, not automatic, so anyone sitting on a flat-rate deal stays on it unless they actively switch.
To find out if a time-of-use plan works for your situation, Brown pointed to billy.govt.nz, the Electricity Authority's free price comparison tool. "You can check whether you are on the best deal and find realistic estimates on savings."
The opportunity is real. The effort, as always, is yours.