Price stress for Flick customers
Power retailer Flick Electric has customers experiencing such high spot prices many are opting to switch services – but at least one other retailer is refusing to take them on as customers.
The company, which offers power at wholesale prices – also called spot prices – said the surge would continue to hit their customers’ wallets in the coming weeks.
Flick Electric told customers three out of the seven days in the last billing had high spot prices, and customers would see continued high prices into next week’s bills.
One customer complained on Flick’s Facebook page that, under the surge pricing, she had paid $111 for a week of power – almost the equivalent of the past four weeks’ bills combined. Others complained their weekly bill had topped $300. The high wholesale price was also impacting customers’ ability to ditch Flick in favour of other retailers.
In a Facebook post, Flick Electric said, ‘‘Sadly, we’ve learned that at least one retailer isn’t currently taking customers from spot retailers – including us – during these higher spot price events, which isn’t illegal but does mean that consumer choice is really compromised.’’
Last year, Flick Electric chief executive Steve O’Connor said during a price surge, higher prices typically lasted three to eight weeks, but only occurred once every five years.
The company has offered its six-month fixed-contract option, Fixie, to customers that cannot afford surge pricing, but it means customers would miss out on the lower prices during summer.
In a note to customers, Flick said the high prices were driven by a continued outage at a gas plant and lower than usual rainfall, which meant there was lower output from the hydro lakes.
Woodward Partners energy sector analyst John Kidd wrote to clients on Tuesday that two separate, unrelated outages over the past six months have almost halved gas production from Pohokura, New Zealand’s largest gas field, with problems at two other fields limiting how much gas could be exported. Kidd also said storage in hydroelectricity systems was around three quarters of the average level and at the lowest point for this time of year since 2010.
Flick Electric has been contacted for comment. Twenty tonnes of produce in a single month.
That’s the amount of various foods no longer wanted on shop shelves and redistributed last month by the volunteers at Kiwi Community Assistance.
It was a monthly record for the nearly-seven-year-old organisation, which redistributes food and goods to 67 charities around the Wellington Region, including Plunket, the Salvation Army and Women’s Refuge.
Based just north of Wellington City in a small warehouse packed with clothing, whiteware, and anything else a home could need, the daily orders come in from all over.
Operations manager Tracey Wellington needs four phones just to keep up with the calls.
Wesley Community Action have a client needing a new car seat. A kindy wants some free milk. The Salvation Army wants bread. House of Grace wants three banana boxes full of veges.
‘‘It’s just in and out all the time,’’ Wellington said.
On Tuesday alone, 933 kilograms of produce was collected from various supermarkets and other sources before being redistributed.
‘‘We have a waiting list for charities. Before we take on an agency, we need to make sure it won’t have any detrimental impact to the other 67.’’
So far this year, 12,889 banana boxes full of food have fed 43,305 people – about 80 per cent of that went to people in Porirua.
Wellington said after people, pig farmers often get the leftovers.
The former assistant accountant and her family have sacrificed a lot to achieve those numbers.
Her husband works, but they sold the family home – they have a daughter – and used the profit to allow her to work for free, full time on the charity.
Rescuing the record amount bodes well as they head into their busiest time of the year.
They can always take more volunteers, particularly in the lead up to Christmas.
‘‘We don’t take second-hand stuff for Christmas presents.
‘‘The families are going through a hard time and it raises their self esteem that someone cares about them.’’