A slight rise in power charges in parts of Northland could not come at the worst possible time after lines companies and some electricity retailers signalled plans to increase their lines charges.

How the increase
in lines charges impacts customers will depend on how power retailers decide to pass the charges through to their customers.

Standard residential users in Whangārei and Kaipara will pay an additional $1.20 per week based on the average consumption of 8000 kilowatts per year.

In the Far North district, Top Energy said most people would see their residential bill increase or decrease by up to $10 a month, depending on their plan. It follows a 9 percent decrease last year.

The low-user daily rate is increasing from 30c to 45c per day in the Far North district.

Genesis has confirmed its 9000 residential customers in Northland will pay 5.9 per cent more from next month, or on average about $130 extra a year – the first increase in two years.

There won’t be any price increase for Genesis’ business customers.

Contact said in its half-year results, price increases were a little over 4 per cent, and it expected this to be closer to 6 per cent for the full year. A 6 per cent increase equates to about $2.10 extra a week. Contact has about 18,000 customers in Northland.

Meridian has put on hold planned price changes in a number of regions affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, including Northland, while Mercury’s about 20,000 customers in the region won’t see any changes in their power charges for at least the next six months.

Northpower customer experience manager Rachel Wansbone said inflation and the cost of labour, fuel and materials have contributed to a rise in lines charges.

Regulatory changes such as Transpower’s shift to their pricing methodology and regulatory changes to low fixed charge pricing also contributed to an increase in lines charges, she said.

“We collect the money we need to run our electricity network, and to repair and maintain our assets through lines prices charged to retailers. We also have to pass on charges we pay to Transpower for our connection to the national grid, this is about 25 percent of our total lines charge.”

Wansbone said retailers decided how and what they wanted to charge their customers.

She said the lines charge portion of the power bill from Northpower that was passed on by retailers was usually about 30 per cent of the total bill. But she said retailers offered customers different packages and passed on costs in different ways.

Genesis acting chief customer officer Cameron Jardine said like most businesses, the company faced increased costs and inflation.

“We have absorbed cost increases across the business for two years. These include the price of fuel, carbon charges under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, electricity line company charges, changing regulations, and labour costs. The cost of carbon, for example, increased 12 per cent in the 12 months to December 2022,” Jardine said.

“We appreciate the increase is a challenge for customers and that was a factor we considered. The counterpoint was that if we continued to absorb costs, the margin would be much bigger when they were eventually passed through,” he said.

Jardine said Genesis’ residential customers were notified last month their electricity prices would increase in March by an average of 5.9 per cent.

Once weather-affected customers in Northland were back on their feet, he said they should ring Genesis to go through various ways they could be helped, such as extending payment times, applying a credit to their bill or providing free hours of power through its Power Shout programme.

Jardine said Genesis was also working with the Electricity Retailers’ Association of New Zealand (Eranz) to set up a fund to assist New Zealanders in need with the power costs following the recent weather events.