BEST Off-Peak/Night/Free Power Plans

TABLE UPDATED 3 August 2024
​Being a high consuming power home, reviewing our power supplier became critical recently as our bills have soared following a rate review of our current provider (Just Energy/Pulse). You can jump to our summary, or read on and I’ll explain the process we took and share some of our learnings (in the highlighted quotes below.

​As we are home during the day, an off-peak plan seemed like it must be a good option for us, and sustainable too since it shifts power off the periods of peak-expensive demand.

Comparing Off-Peak Power Plans

So I started the process of evaluating the available plans with the first port of call being the power comparison sites: Powerswitch, SwitchMe and NZPower Compare.

Power Comparison sites can’t/won’t help you evaluate Off-Peak Plans properly. They’ll generalise your usage.

Generalising your usage might be ok for a working family, but less so if you’re home during the day due to being retired, working from home or are at home with pre-schoolers.  It can (and did in my case) undervalues the off-peak savings to be had.

Power Comparison sites are selective. They only include the companies that pay or choose to be listed.

Yes, the comparison service is free to you - but the energy companies pay. Some choose not to pay for a variety of reasons and the comparison sites don’t tell you that. They may list all the companies on their Energy Companies page, but you’ll only get to see in the comparison results the companies that do pay them. In one case I was told by the comparison site “Oh that company doesn’t provide their rates to us. It’s usually because they have something to hide - like uncompetitive rates.” I’m paraphrasing but they were quite disparaging and yet - guess what - that power company was the cheapest by far for us!!

There are lots of Off-peak Plans!!

There are a surprising number of Off-Peak plans in New Zealand and they’re all structured in different ways. 

Which NZ Energy Companies have Off-Peak Plans?

In New Zealand, several electricity companies offer discounts for power used during off-peak times. These plans are designed to encourage consumers to use electricity when demand is lower, helping to balance the load on the grid. Here are some of the companies that provide off-peak discounts:

1. Flick Electric
2. Contact Energy
3. Ecotricity
4. Meridian
5. Electric Kiwi
6. Octopus Energy​
7. Powershop

​Have I missed any? Let me know in the comments.

You really need to find out your power usage by day of the week and hour.

These companies have. myriad of plans that vary in terms of the exact off-peak hours, the discounts offered and the daily fixed charges. You can’t make meaningful sense out of them without knowing what days and times you use the most power.  

You are entitled to ask for your power consumption data.

Clauses 11.32A to 11.32F of the Electricity Industry Participation Code (Code), require retailers to give you information about your electricity consumption upon request. You can request your data via email (use the email address associated with your account), by phone or even via chat message.  You'll need to have your ICP number from your power bill and there may be some security questions depending on the company. The information has to be provided within 5 working days.
​Power companies must provide the most granular data they have available for you - if that is the level of detail you want.

Even without a Smartmeter, there may be up to two year’s worth of half-hourly data!!

We recently had a smartmeter installed so we believed we finally had the data to collected to evaluate the various off-peak plans. We contacted our power company and requested the data be sent to us. We requested half-hourly data but, since none of the plans are half-hourly, hourly data would have been simpler. When it arrived, it wasn’t formatted at all into meaningful information - it was just an unhelpful data dump! Luckily I’m good with a spreadsheet. The bigger surprise was the amount of data.

Cheapest Off-Peak Power Plans (Standard Electricity User)

Notes: All the prices above are GST exclusive and may be rounded.  The rates are based on an Auckland ICP.  Rates last updated 3 August 2024.
We are a household of Night Owls so 78% of our usage is off-peak.  This is unusually high!

Lowest Off-Peak Electricity Rates on a Standard Plan?

It was Electric Kiwi’s Powershifter plan that came out on top based on our electricity usage last month but sadly with high wholesale rates, Electric Kiwi is not taking on any new customers and these rates from may be different once they start accepting customers again.

Next best at the moment for our usage was Contact Energy's Good Weekend Plan.

• The Contact Energy Good Weekend Plan has 16 hours of free power in the weekend and a rate of 18.6c per kiloWatt at any other time.
• You need to do the work to a) understand the timing of our usage and b) calculate the end charge based on the rates for each time period. Your usage may be different and give a different result.
• Contact Energy also had the lowest gas rates when we checked as well.

Genesis' Anytime electricity rate also performed quite well - which is disappointing.  There are real financial benefits for customers or sustainability benefits for the nation by encouraging us to use off-peak electricity. I'd love to see having a competitive off-peak plan a requirement of every power company.  

Highlights of Contact's Good Weekend Energy Plan

16 Free hours at a time when you can use them to complete chores over the weekend.

Peak rate is a low 18.6c excluding GST.

Contact Energy had the cheapest Gas rates we found.

Please let me know in the comments if you've found a better deal.

And no. I do not have any commercial relationship with any of the energy companies other than as a customer and I will keep updating this table.  If you appreciate the service - maybe consider shouting me a coffee via Ko-Fi below.

Read also: 20 Ways to use Free Hours of Power