Residential customers grumbling at missing out on the benefits of tumbling spot market electricity prices may one day be able to take their chance with fluctuating wholesale power prices.
Heavy rain has filled South Island hydro lakes, forcing power companies to spill excess water and driving downelectricity spot prices to the benefit of some big commercial customers buying power on the wholesale market.
But residential customers are not expected to enjoy similar relief.
Electricity Commission chairman David Caygill said the power companies had a fair point when they said that in the middle of last winter, when lake levels were low and spot prices much higher, they did not immediately increase their prices to retail customers.
Any large businesses paying wholesale prices saw a price rise then, leading many of them to cut back usage, he said.
That was a winter advantage to retail customers but now they might feel they would be better off with more flexible prices.
Longer term a "very important" development was the introduction of modern metering systems which would enable retail companies to introduce more flexible tariffs. Such tariffs were likely sometime in the next five years, and he expected a range of options to become available.
"When that happens those who want to, will be able to buy electricity on a more flexible basis which sees the price probably go up and down in the course of a year. Or maybe they would have a tariff which goes up and down in the course of a day," he said.
"The real reason why this matters is because it would encourage more customers to use electricity more efficiently," Mr Caygill said.
