Powershop is an online power company available to residents in the Kapiti area, including Paraparaumu, Raumati, Waikenae and also Levin and the Horowhenua region. We’ve been supplying homes and businesses with electricity in Kapiti since 2009.
Who has the power in Kapiti?
Around 46,149 individual properties are connected to the electricity network in the Electra network region in which Kapiti is based.
The average consumption per property in Kapiti is approximately 6,502 kWh per year. This compares to 6,890 kWh per year for the North Island as a whole and 7,888 kWh per year in the South Island.
Where does the power come from?
New Zealand is working towards becoming 100% renewable by 2030, for the good of our planet and future generations. We’re proudly around 85% renewable, but still rely on fossil fuels as part of the national grid’s supply.
Kapiti and Horowhenua homes and businesses are powered by various sources of energy. Along with the national grid that includes hydro, wind and geothermal generation, more recently Energise Ōtaki introduced solar power farms in the region to power local users. If you’re based in Kapiti, you may even want to take advantage of the sunshine with a solar power solution on your property - but make sure to do your research first.
Who is the local lines company in Kapiti?
Electra is the energy lines company in Kapiti. Electra also supplies power to Horowhenua. They own and operate electricity lines and transmission infrastructure within these districts, as well as providing maintenance and outage response services.
As the regional network, Electra or one of its contractors will take care of a fault or outage at your property or within the community. You can also contact us if you’re a Powershop customer already and we’ll give you some assistance – including liaising with the power company to get you an update. Note that many power outages are planned and impact multiple properties, so there’s a good chance that the outage is already being addressed. You can check planned outages in Kapiti on Electra’s website.
Do I get a dividend or discount from my lines company in Kapiti?
Electra does have discounts and distributions to residents. Learn more about this here.
How much do I pay for power while living in Kapiti?
If you provide your home address in our calculator you can get a simple estimate of your rates. You can also upload a recent bill to get an annual cost estimate and find out how much Powershop could save you compared to your current retailer.
Or you can download the current rates for residential customers in Kapiti.
How can I save money on power in Kapiti?
There are a number of ways to reduce power costs for those living in Kapiti:
- Think about changing your power consumption to have the more demanding use occur outside of peak time. This can reduce your costs noticeably.
- Make sure you check and take note of each appliance’s power consumption rating – and compare different products’ consumption when buying a new appliance. Once you’ve worked out what’s draining the most electricity, find ways to reduce their individual consumption - including eco mode settings.
- Kapiti is known for its sunshine and gentle (most of the time) breeze – perfect conditions for drying the washing outside in the fresh air instead of the dryer. Better still, the sunlight can help get rid of bacteria and fresh air leaves your clothes feeling and smelling extra clean.
- Reduce your showers to a sensible 5 minutes – over the year this can mount up to hundreds of dollars saved!
- Stay on top of your preheating and cooking times – ovens and stoves often demand a lot of energy.
- Check your power retailer’s account dashboard to monitor usage habits over the day, week, and month. This can help identify spikes to help you and the household adjust habits to save.
- If you’re with Powershop, check out our regular discounted specials via the shop.
For more power saving tips read the full Saving Electricity guide.
What is Get Shifty?
Time of Use pricing is available to customers with smart meters in nearly all network areas – including Electra. TOU is about charging differently for our peak and off-peak usage. For those who are able to do more of their power consumption outside of peak times, you may be able to save on power costs.
We call our TOU offering Get Shifty. With Get Shifty, you can save money when you shift your power use to off-peak times of the day. Get Shifty or ‘Time of Use’ pricing is optional in Kapiti and Horowhenua.
Note that while your off-peak rate is lower with Get Shifty, your peak rate is higher.
What are my peak and off-peak times for Kapiti on Get Shifty?
Everyday:
Night: 11pm - 7am
Off Peak: 11am - 5pm, 9pm - 11pm
Peak: 7am - 11am, 5pm - 9pm
What are the rates for Get Shifty?
To find out your Get Shifty rates for Electra, chat to us between 8am-7pm, Monday to Friday. Or view our full rates for residential customers in the Kapiti area.
