Save on Power Bills
Powerswitch users save an average of $450 a year just by checking. Here is how NZ's power market actually works and how to get your share of that.
NZ's power market is built for switching
New Zealand deregulated its electricity retail market decades ago specifically to create competition between retailers over the same national grid. Whoever you buy power from, it travels down the same lines to your house - switching retailer changes who bills you, not the physical electricity or the wires it travels through. That structural fact is what makes an independent comparison tool like Powerswitch effective: it is comparing genuinely interchangeable products on price alone.
Powerswitch: the free, independent comparison tool
Powerswitch is run by Consumer NZ as a not-for-profit service, comparing 15 power retailers covering 98% of the market, with pricing checked and verified regularly. You enter your address and your actual kWh usage from a recent bill, and it calculates whether you are currently overpaying relative to every plan available at your address - not just the big four names people default to.
The average saving Powerswitch identifies for people who check is around $450 a year - a big enough number that it is worth the ten minutes it takes, especially if you have not checked in more than a year or two.
The major retailers and how they differ
- Contact Energy, Mercury, Genesis: the largest incumbents, generally competitive on standard plans, often running their own sign-up incentives (bill credits, prepay discounts).
- Electric Kiwi: known for genuinely innovative plan structures, including MoveMaster (a free daily off-peak hour) and other time-of-use options aimed at people who can shift usage to cheaper hours.
- Smaller/challenger retailers: frequently undercut the big names on headline per-kWh rates, though service footprint and account management can be more basic.
Standard plan vs time-of-use / off-peak plan
Standard flat-rate plan: simplest option, same rate all day - fine if your usage is spread evenly through the day and you don't want to think about timing.
Time-of-use / off-peak plan: cheaper rates during specific off-peak windows (commonly overnight, and increasingly with smart meters a "free hour" or similar), more expensive during peak evening hours. Genuinely worthwhile if you can shift big loads - EV charging, hot water cylinder, dishwasher, laundry - into the cheap window. If you can't shift usage, it can end up costing more than a flat rate.
Where the actual savings come from
In 2026, the biggest gains for many households come from shifting when power is used rather than just picking a cheaper flat rate - modern retailers increasingly offer time-of-use pricing that Powerswitch highlights automatically if you have a smart meter. Pairing a genuinely off-peak plan with simple habit changes (running the dishwasher and laundry overnight, charging an EV on a timer) can beat even the best flat-rate plan by a meaningful margin.
Standby power is a separate, smaller lever
Switching retailer and plan addresses the rate you pay per kWh - it doesn't reduce how much you actually use. If you want to also cut the amount of power your household draws in the first place, phantom/standby power from devices left plugged in around the clock is a genuinely separate problem worth tackling; see our phantom power guide for where that hides and how to cut it.
What to actually do
Grab your last power bill for your exact kWh usage, run it through Powerswitch, and see what's actually available at your address. If you can genuinely shift some usage to off-peak hours, look seriously at a time-of-use plan - if not, stick with a straightforward flat-rate plan from whichever retailer comes out cheapest. Repeat the check roughly once a year.
Cut standby power too
Compare smart plugs and power boards on Twisti to automatically kill phantom power from devices left on standby around the clock.
Compare prices now →