Electricity and fibre pricing for business
Electricity pricing for business
Northpower owns the electricity distribution network which delivers power to the Whangārei and Kaipara regions and we apply a pricing schedule to determine how much we charge connected customers.
Your retailer then sets the price of your electricity. This is usually a fixed daily charge and a cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) which cover all the costs from electricity generation to transporting it to your home or business.
Northpower’s charges are used to run our electricity network, providing a 24/7 service, repairing, maintaining and upgrading our assets, like lines and substations. They are charged as ‘lines charges’ to retailers, who then decide how and what they want to charge their customers. On average in Aotearoa New Zealand, lines charges make up about 27% of your total power bill. In addition, our charges include the costs from Transpower to use the national grid to transport electricity from where it is generated to our network (about 10.5% of your power bill).
What are the costs that contribute to an average home or business power bill?
Residential versus general electricity pricing
There are two main categories in our pricing – residential and general. Residential pricing is allocated to connections which are ‘domestic premises’ where people live, but does not include places such as hotels, motels, hostels, hospitals, and other places that provide temporary accommodation.
Most businesses come under the ‘general’ price categories, covering commercial and industrial premises, schools, farms, community facilities, pumps, sheds, telecommunication cabinets, and streetlights. The general price category also includes separate ICPs at residential properties which are for loads such as pumps and sheds.
Electricity pricing for large commercial and industrial
We design special price plans for large commercial and industrial sites with significant electricity requirements. In most cases, these businesses either have a dedicated transformer or connect to the Northpower network at high voltage. Some examples include supermarkets, sawmills and large office blocks.
These sites must have half hour metering installed which read real energy (kWh) together with either or both reactive energy (kVArh) or apparent energy (kVAh) and consumption data must be submitted and recorded.
Fibre pricing for businesses
In Whangārei, the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) network has been constructed by Northpower Fibre. UFB services are offered to network customers by retail service providers (RSPs) and it is the RSP that determines the cost of fibre for each connection. We recommend you visit our Fibre business pricing information and Fibre retail service providers page for more information and to find the provider that best suits your needs.
Learn more about electricity pricing
Check out these great resources in our For Homes section, explaining everything from what makes up your power bill to our annual distribution charges discounts for all connected customers and access to financial support.
Distribution charges discounts
Energy efficient homes programme
Access to financial support
