Hard News: Dear Prudence
153 Responses
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What do you think? It clearly benefits the lucky punter who gets a PVR, we get a little money, and -- hopefully -- the conversation is worthwhile.
It seems pretty transparent to me. And presumably said blogger would be free to write that the experience sucks, should that be the (admittedly, unlikely) case.
Be up front to us, I don't think you'll hear many grumblings.
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Retailers are there because the alternative would see us all shafted (even more) for our electricity
Not if it were owned by the people for the people, as God intended.
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My "alternative" there was the alternative in the existingmarket setup btw. Obviously there are completely different systems possible, like Rich's example.
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Not if it were owned by the people for the people, as God intended
I'm pretty sure all electrons belong to the Estate of Michael Faraday, by right of discovery.
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The bit I've never got about this new fangled electrickery stuff is how do you know which electricity are you getting? I mean, it all comes down the same wire and you can't even see it.
Steve, in the short-term it doesn't matter too much. The point of MRET and related initiatives is to progressively develop the market for green-generation (wind, solar etc). As someone up-thread said, the electrons pumped through the infrastructure don't differ in anyway because of their generation. MRET gives investors confidence that for a reasonable period of time, demand for their services (green-generation or offsets) will be kept higher than they might otherwise have been despite the price-disadvantage associated with the fuel/technology/capital etc (this addresses the classical economic market failure of public spillover benefits of investment). There's an excellent ABC background briefing on MRET, its limitations and some alternatives if you're interested. The ACT feed-in system is damn interesting.
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remember how electricity works, basically the company loans you a few electrons and then takes them back - 50 times a second - what you're really buying is not the electrons but the push behind them
What I'd like to see is an electricity scheme that includes the cost of pushing those electrons across Cook Straight (they get pushed only one way which makes converting them back into the form we get into our houses much less efficient) if we lose say 30% of what we put into a cable it stands to reason it ought to be cheaper at the other end
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What I'd like to see is an electricity scheme that includes the cost of pushing those electrons across Cook Straight
You'll be wanting a feed-in system then... actually, that's a bit glib, NZ's reliant on hydro, solar arrangements don't work quite so well if you live under the long-white cloud and wind farms mightn't look so nice in St Clair...
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"Given that TVNZ pays the taxpayer a dividend, isn't Russell funding the taxpayer, rather than the other way?"
Well, that all depends...
Where does the dividend come from? Its advertisng revenue, isnt it?
Whether any show was paying a dividend or not would depend on what the show cost the network (whether they make it themselves or pay a production house) versus the ad revenue from the ads shown within that program.... and TVNZ 7 doesnt show any commercial adverts... so I think Media 7 is definitely publicly fundED rather than public fundING. -
No what I was implying more was that we'd use our power more efficiently if we put the users closer to where it's generated - by making South island power the same price in both the North and South Islands we effectively encourage people to waste it - sending power from Benmore to Auckland (or even Wellington) is a waste, instead if we can encourage industries to set up in say Oamaru instead we'll use what we already have much more efficiently - the best way to encourage that is to charge the real costs, including geographically related transmission losses
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Retailers are there because the alternative would see us all shafted (even more) for our electricity - it's a realisation that there will only ever be one set of "the wires" in your area and leaving the owner of them to charge you for the power they deliver wouldn't be a recipe for lean pricing.
But the generators are charging the retailer, so you're paying in the end... all the retailers are competing on is how much they will cut the markup to buy the right to bill you.
But even that is dodgy. And just like the Telco's their main strategy is confusion. Try comparing power plans to see which one comes out cheaper for you sometime.
So that's where this new site comes in I guess.
However my experience of prepay power has been been totally coloured by someone from Mercury cold-calling me, and attempting to get me to quit my account, and go to their Glo-Bug prepay service, suggesting that i might save money. I asked how much, and neither she nor her supervisor could tell me the price for my area and usage. When i finally tracked down the info (3 phone calls later), I found that the prepay pricing would cost me approx $20-30/month more than on my plan.
In fact, when I worked it out, it turned out the Glo-Bug pricing was more expensive than all Mercury's plans for anyone using more than 150kwH per month. Check your latest bill if you want to see how ridiculously low that usage is. Despite this, everyone i talked to at all stages of the process suggested that some people were saving money by switching.
Of course this price difference doesn't even count them having the use of my money for the month while they were delivering the power.
Plus they cut the power as soon as your credit runs out.
This was in the week that the coroner's report into the death of the woman in South Auckland who died when the power was cut off came back.
I got quite worked up about it at the time, and was going to write up my experience, but fizzled out. I think i still have the spreadsheet i graphed it with somewhere.
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In that spirit, Ffunnell is discussing a campaign with Freeview. A reader each from participating sites gets a Freeview PVR, on the condition that they blog about their experience of entering the world of digital time-shifting. They'd be someone who didn't have any form of digital TV or recorder.
I made it clear that we'd have to do it our way -- no daily posts (eg: perhaps two posts over two weeks would be appropriate), it'd have to be someone who could write engagingly enough to make it worthwhile, and I'd clearly explain the basis on which things were being done.
What do you think? It clearly benefits the lucky punter who gets a PVR, we get a little money, and -- hopefully -- the conversation is worthwhile.
Ooh ooh pick me, pick me!
I'm way behind the digital curve, have a BA in, ahem, Media Studies*, have written/edited for a living in the past and once blogged for a limited time only.
* Also one in Politics. So there. As if it helps.
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and TVNZ 7 doesnt show any commercial adverts... so I think Media 7 is definitely publicly fundED rather than public fundING.
TVNZ 7 is covered by the $89m for five years granted by the last government to get the digital channels established -- so not the Charter or advertising.
But I don't actually work for TVNZ. I'm a contractor to Top Shelf Productions, which in turn is contracted to make the programme for TVNZ. Reasonably important distinction.
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all the retailers are competing on is how much they will cut the markup to buy the right to bill you.
Well yes. Which, in the existing split-role model seems like a good thing to me. As I said though, I was contrasting it only with a "single distributor bills you the power they purchase" model with generation and transmission the same as current. I'd rather not have one company as my "choice"
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Yes, but the point is, it's their markup they are competing on, which is an added layer of profit taking going onto that power price, which perhaps wouldn't need to be there.
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Fair point, although conceptually they are bundling the bill of the lines companies and generation companies. Those companies would otherwise have to bill those themselves with the accompanying cost and margin - if we changed models the functions the retailers currently undertake would have to be done somewhere.
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Hey, this is interesting ...
I've just had a call from Mercury Energy -- not because of who I am, I think, but because they seem to be calling everyone for whom they get a Powershop switch request.
Their pitch:
- Actually, when you factor in the standing charge and the prompt payment discount, their offering is priced about the same as Powershop's
- Like Powershop, they're offering a $50 credit by way of an inducement.
- They're holding their rates until April 2010.
- They point out that you need to be careful not to overbuy with Powershop -- ie, don't buy more kW than you can use before they expire.
Interesting. I've asked for details in writing.
But is contacting and making offers to customers on this basis anti-competitive, or just good retail competition?
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an added layer of profit taking going onto that power price, which perhaps wouldn't need to be there.
Which was , kinda, my point. A nationalised power system (and Gas and water for that matter) would be more equitable. Some would say that that system has been tried and failed through inefficiency but those are the same people who actively destroyed that system for private profit.
Personally I would like to see solar panels on every roof feeding back into the grid and efficient users paid for the excess power they supply. I would also like a Pony and World peace. -
But is contacting and making offers to customers on this basis anti-competitive, or just good retail competition?
I'd call that good competition, albeit only offered under the gun of leaving.
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Alan Macdougall ran an interesting discussion of Powershop on his blog a wee while ago.
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But is contacting and making offers to customers on this basis anti-competitive, or just good retail competition?
I guess it's what any sensible business would do if you cancelled their service.
But because the whole thing is artificial, it looks like an anti-competitive practice. For one thing, Meridian and MRP are both SOEs, as is Genesis. Why it's more efficient to have three companies with the same owner pretending to compete escapes me.
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Alan Macdougall ran an interesting discussion of Powershop on his blog a wee while ago.
That's excellent, as are the comments.
If Ari Sargent is reading this, he's welcome to contribute any comments.
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That Macdougall piece is superb. Cheers. Powershop mightn't be for everyone but big kudos for their engagement and product innovation.
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Powershop will come into it's own as more of the smart meter/Glo Bug meters come onstream. That's where Google's Powermeter project is heading too - it's the live info of your usage tied into purchasing that will setup some real savings I imagine.
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Why it's more efficient to have three companies with the same owner pretending to compete escapes me.
Smoke and mirrors Rich. Keep the punters scared and confused.
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- Like Powershop, they're offering a $50 credit by way of an inducement.
So, how do I, as an existing Mercury customer, get this $50 credit? They'll just credit my (and everyone elses) account? Yeah Right!
Phone them up and tell them I'm thinking about switching?
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