Question 1

Is PowerHub actually supplying power yet?

Accepted Answer

Yes. PowerHub was approved by the Electricity Authority to act uncertified as a reconciliation participant retailer under clause 2B(1A) on 6 July 2026. We have been billing customers ever since, and our full certification audit is underway.

Question 2

Are you a power company, or something else?

Accepted Answer

We are a licensed New Zealand electricity retailer, regulated on the same terms as any other. What is different is how we earn. A conventional retailer buys at wholesale, sells you a fixed rate, and keeps the spread. PowerHub passes the wholesale price through and charges a flat service fee of $0.02 per kWh + GST on top of it. Our margin does not move when the market does.

Question 3

Who is PowerHub built for?

Accepted Answer

There are two steps and you do not have to take both at once. Membership, which gives you wholesale-price electricity plus our service fee, makes sense from about $350 a month of electricity spend. A battery subscription starts paying for itself from about $450 a month, because that is the point where shifting your consumption into cheap hours earns more than the subscription costs. Most of our members have an EV, or a pool, spa or underfloor heating, or all three.

Question 4

Who is PowerHub not for?

Accepted Answer

If you want one number on a bill that never changes, we are the wrong retailer and we would rather say so now. Under about $350 a month you will not recover the membership fee. And if you take wholesale pricing without a battery, understand what that means: you are fully exposed to the spot market, and that is not a position we recommend to anyone.

Question 5

What do I actually pay each month?

Accepted Answer

Four things. The wholesale spot price for the electricity you used, at the times you used it. A PowerHub service fee of $0.02 per kWh. Network, metering and Electricity Authority levy charges, passed through at exactly what we are invoiced with no margin added. And $5 a month for billing. That is the entire list. All prices exclude GST.

Question 6

What is the 2 cents a kWh for?

Accepted Answer

That is our whole margin on the electricity you consume. It is flat, it is published, and it does not rise when the market does. It covers running a retail business: metering data, reconciliation, settlement, support and compliance.

Question 7

Do you add a markup to the wholesale price?

Accepted Answer

No. You pay what the market charged for your consumption in each half-hour. The $0.02 per kWh + GST service fee is separate and shown as its own line on your invoice.

Question 8

What is the wholesale clearing prudential, and how much is it?

Accepted Answer

It is a refundable security deposit that the wholesale market requires before anyone can buy on it. PowerHub passes it through at the amount we are invoiced and adds nothing to it. As a rule of thumb it works out at about 5 cents per kWh of your expected annual use: roughly $500 for a home using 10,000 kWh a year, $700 at 14,000 kWh, and about $1,000 at 20,000 kWh. It is not a fee. It is your money, held as security, and it is returned to you when you leave.

Question 9

What is the 10%, and when does it apply?

Accepted Answer

Only to what you export. When your solar or battery sells electricity back to the wholesale market, PowerHub takes 10% of the value earned and you keep 90%. It never applies to the power you consume. Consumption is charged at the wholesale spot price plus $0.02 per kWh + GST.

Question 10

Are there charges that are not on the fee schedule?

Accepted Answer

No. The fee schedule on our Plans page is the complete list, including the one-off costs of joining. If a charge is not on it, we do not levy it.

Question 11

What happens when wholesale prices spike?

Accepted Answer

Spot prices in New Zealand can rise sharply for a few hours, during a dry winter or when a generating plant trips. Your battery is what absorbs that. It charges through the cheap hours and runs your house through the expensive ones, so the spike passes over you rather than through you. Our Wholesale risk page sets out how large those moves can get.

Question 12

Could I pay more in a given month than I would have with my old retailer?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in a given month you could, and we will not tell you otherwise. What the model does is remove the retailer's margin permanently and give you an asset that shifts your consumption into cheap hours. Over a year, for a high-use home with a battery, that is where the gain is. A single bad month is not the measure.

Question 13

Why does the battery matter so much?

Accepted Answer

Because the battery is the hedge. Every retailer hedges against the spot market; that is most of what your fixed tariff pays for. With PowerHub the hedge is a physical thing sitting at your property, working for your house, instead of a position on a trading book that gets quietly repriced into your rate each year.

Question 14

Who owns the battery?

Accepted Answer

PowerHub owns the hardware. You own the hedge. We supply, maintain, replace and recycle the battery, so there is no capital outlay, no service bill, no warranty argument, and no obsolete battery on your hands in ten years. What belongs to you is everything the battery does: when it charges, when it discharges, and every dollar that saves on your bill. You own the decisions. We own the depreciation.

Question 15

What if regulations or market rules change?

Accepted Answer

Pass-through cuts both ways, and that is the point. When network charges or the Electricity Authority levy move, you pay exactly the new amount, no more and no less. There is no lag and no opportunity for us to hold a decrease back.

Question 16

Which battery do you use?

Accepted Answer

The EcoWave Fever-1, 15 kWh, with a 6 kW hybrid inverter built in. It is one of only 17 products on EECA's approved list for solar and battery products in New Zealand, across five brands in total. We choose the hardware and we own it, which means when better technology arrives, upgrading is our problem to solve rather than yours.

Question 17

Why does the EECA listing matter?

Accepted Answer

EECA's approved list is the standard the New Zealand government set for solar and battery products sold here. Being on it means the product has been assessed against that standard rather than just marketed against it. Given how few products are on the list, it is a meaningful filter.

Question 18

What does the battery cost, and what if it breaks?

Accepted Answer

There is no capital cost, because you do not buy the battery: we do. You pay $149 plus GST a month for the use of it. Buying an equivalent battery outright typically costs $10,000 to $20,000. If it develops a fault we fix it, because it is our asset. There is no warranty claim for you to make and no service bill to pay.

Question 19

Do I need solar as well?

Accepted Answer

No. The battery alone does the work of shifting your consumption into cheap hours. Solar compounds it: you generate at close to zero marginal cost, fill your own battery from your own roof, and export the surplus at wholesale value less our 10% service fee rather than at a retailer's buy-back rate.

Question 20

What does solar cost?

Accepted Answer

A ground-mounted set of twelve 600 watt panels, pre-wired and pre-framed for connection to the battery, is $5,500 plus GST. That is equivalent to a 7.2 kW array generating roughly 10,800 kWh a year. Unlike the battery, the solar is bought outright and owned by you.

Question 21

Is this better than a diesel generator?

Accepted Answer

For most sites, yes, and for different reasons than people expect. A diesel generator is backup: it does nothing at all until the power goes out, it needs fuel on hand, it needs servicing, and it earns you nothing in the 8,750 hours a year the grid is up. A battery is backup and an earning asset. It keeps your house running through an outage, and the rest of the time it is buying power cheaply and using it when power is expensive. If you need many hours of high-load run time in a remote location, a generator still has a place, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

Question 22

Can a diesel generator work alongside the PowerHub battery?

Accepted Answer

In most cases yes. The battery carries the house through short outages and the generator is there for a long one, which is a sensible split for a rural site. The specifics depend on your existing switchboard and changeover arrangement, so send us the details and we will tell you what will and will not work before you commit to anything.

Question 23

What is the membership fee?

Accepted Answer

A one-off account setup charge, priced by your revenue meter category and the term you choose. For a standard residential connection, Cat 1, it is $320 for three years, $575 for six years, or $1,055 for twelve years, all plus GST. Larger connections are a multiple of the Cat 1 fee. The full table is on our Plans page.

Question 24

Why is there a membership fee at all?

Accepted Answer

Because we do not recover our costs through your unit rate. A conventional retailer's setup costs are buried in the margin you pay every month for years. Ours are charged once, up front, and disclosed. It is the same money. The difference is that you can see it, and that once it is paid we have no further claim on your consumption beyond $0.02 per kWh + GST.

Question 25

Can I leave?

Accepted Answer

Any time, with 30 days' notice. Your supply agreement is open-ended: there is no fixed-term electricity contract and no exit penalty on supply.

Question 26

Do I get the membership fee back if I leave early?

Accepted Answer

You have ten working days from joining to change your mind and get the fee back in full. After that, the membership fee is a one-off charge for the term you selected: if you leave before the term ends there is no break cost, and there is no refund. We would rather you knew that before you paid it than after.

Question 27

What happens if I move house?

Accepted Answer

Your membership belongs to you rather than to the property, so it moves with you. Tell us your new address and ICP number and we transfer the account rather than closing it: there is no second membership fee, only the standard $5 plus GST switch-in for the new connection. If you have a battery on subscription, talk to us before you move, because whether it is relocated or replaced depends on the new property and we would rather tell you what is possible before you commit to anything. If you are moving somewhere we cannot supply, we close the account on 30 days' notice and return your prudential.

Question 28

I am a residential customer. How does this work for me?

Accepted Answer

The same way it works for any household, with one qualifier: the numbers need your usage to be high enough. Around $350 a month of electricity spend is where membership starts to pay, and around $450 is where a battery subscription does. If you have an EV, a pool or spa, or underfloor heating, you are almost certainly in that range. Send us a recent power bill and we will show you what the same usage would have cost on PowerHub.

Question 29

I run a small or medium business. How does this work for me?

Accepted Answer

Broadly the same, with three differences. Your connection is likely Cat 2 or larger, which means the one-off membership fee is a multiple of the residential fee. Your credit check is $30.50 + GST rather than $6 + GST. And a business load is often a better fit for wholesale pricing than a house, because a predictable weekday profile is easier to shift into cheap hours. Send us twelve months of bills and we will model it properly.

Question 30

You are a new retailer. What happens if something goes wrong?

Accepted Answer

We are regulated on exactly the same terms as any other retailer. The Electricity Authority approved us in July 2026, our full certification audit is underway, and the standard consumer protections apply, including free and independent dispute resolution through Utilities Disputes if we cannot sort something out with you directly. Your prudential is a deposit held as security, not money we spend, and it is returned to you when you leave.

Question 31

How do I switch, and how long does it take?

Accepted Answer

Send us a recent power bill and we will tell you what that same usage would have cost with us. If it stacks up, we run a credit check, $6 + GST residential or $30.50 + GST commercial, and a $5 + GST switch-in, then the transfer runs on the standard industry timetable. You do not need to contact your current retailer: we handle it.

Question 32

What do you need from me?

Accepted Answer

Your address and ICP number, which is on your current bill, photo identification for the credit check, and access to your meter. To take up membership ahead of your switch date, a recent power bill is enough to start.

Frequently asked questions