Did it work?

A year ago, in the interest of making competition work, we switched our electricity supplier ('We take the plunge'). And now that we've got a year of bills from our NewCo, we can compare them with what our OldCo used to charge. Here's how it worked out.

Pretty good, eh? So there's not a lot of reason for you to be one of the 400,000 to 750,000 people who've never switched, is there? Off you go to Consumer New Zealand's Powerswitch or the Electricity Authority's What's My Number. Make the competitive process work for you.

Incidentally, that estimate of the very large number of people who've never switched came from the Electricity Price Review. As its website says, "Please note: the review delivered its final report to the Minister of Energy and Resources on 29 May 2019. The timing of its public release has yet to be determined".

Good policy development shouldn't be precipitate, but I'm leaning towards the view that four months is enough thinking time given that a range of options were canvassed and consulted on during the review process (if you've forgotten them, head to 'At A Glance', which is p3 here). It's getting time to see the report and the government's response.