How website can save you cash on power

The Electricity Authority has launched a nationwide programme to help householders and other consumers reduce their power bills by shopping around for the best prices on offer.
The "What's My Number" campaign is an initiative of the authority working with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Consumer NZ to help people make more informed choices about their electricity suppliers.
The campaign is based on the website www.whatsmynumber.org.nz which enables consumers to quickly find out how much they can save by switching to the best deal in their region.
It provides a gateway to making the change.
It is being run with Consumer NZ's Powerswitch website, www.powerswitch.org.nz, a site where consumers can switch power companies.
The authority's research indicated that last year the average household could have saved $150 by switching to the cheapest retail offer in their region.
Since the campaign was launched on May 29, a total of 645 TrustPower customers have changed power companies, including 70 from Rotorua.
Rotorua couple Jenny and Philip McGarvie made the switch from TrustPower after seeing the campaign advertised on television.
Mrs McGarvie went on to the website and found she could save $471 a year by making the switch.
The couple switched to Energy Online.
Mrs McGarvie said it was easy to switch. All they had to do was fill in a form online and Energy Online contacted them two days later. They had to pay $95 to TrustPower to leave that power company.
They are now waiting for their next power bill to see how much money they have saved.
Rotorua budget adviser Pearl Pavitt urged people to have a look at the website and not necessarily stick with a power company out of loyalty - which was what many people did.
She said people needed to look at all components of their power bill including daily charges, unit costs, any levies and any discounts the power company offered.
TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches said the company was not worried about the loss of customers as it equated to only 0.2 per cent of its customer base.
However, he was concerned about the accuracy of the website as it compared the cheapest power company with what a customer was paying today and didn't factor in any power-price changes in the next year.
People needed to spend more time on the website than what was advertised to find out exactly how much they would save, Mr Purches said.
Mr Purches said the company was also concerned that taxpayer money was now being used to promote what he claimed to be an inaccurate website, and the company was in discussions with the authority.
The Electricity Authority's chief executive, Carl Hansen, said the authority was happy with the accuracy of the figures on the website as it provided an indicative estimate of savings for consumers.
The advertised time to generate the estimated savings number on the website was three minutes, and to date the average time spent by consumers on the site was 2 minutes 53 seconds.
All retailers are aware that while the cost of the fund is paid by the Government, it is matched by a levy on retailers for the benefit of consumers.
"The purpose of the campaign is to create a more competitive retail market and encourage consumers to shop around for their power as they would for other goods and services."
Meanwhile, TrustPower has a 40 per cent share of customers in Rotorua and its loss of customers last month was the second largest after Contact, which lost 7679 customers.
Genesis, which includes subsidiary Energy Online, gained 3961 customers, according to figures released by the Electricity Authority.