Gas price to go up for residential customers in October
Consumers are set to pay more on their gas bills from October as power retailers pass on network charges.
According to Vector, a gas infrastructure provider, residential consumer prices are set to increase by $1 a month, or about 3 cents a day.
Powerco, another gas network operator, said it would set a similar increase.
Consumer NZ spokeswoman Jessica Wilson said now was a good time for consumers to shop around for a better deal on rates using the Powerswitch website.
“Network costs do get passed on and, unfortunately, this is a trend where costs keeping going up,” she said.
Last week Contact Energy informed customers that, from October 1, the price they pay for energy will change.
The company told customers it had recently seen changes to costs it did not control. These included costs charged for gas transmission, costs charged by the local gas network company, gas industry company charges, and the Electricity Authority levy. As a result it would be making changes to its rates.
Contact corporate communications manager Shaun Jones said the average increase for natural gas customers was below 1 per cent.
“At Contact we have not increased the energy component of natural gas bills that we control since January 2011.”
Trustpower community relations manager Graeme Purches said the company had only received notification of the transmission price changes on August 28.
Trustpower applied costs relative to each region and would review these in October.
Changes would only apply to customers who did not have a price guarantee.
The Nova Energy website states that from October 1, 2015, the Electricity Authority levy and Gas Industry Company levy on bills would change.
Residential natural gas customers on prompt payment discount plans would see a levy charge increase to 2.25 cents per day.
Communications manager Mark Reynolds said gas prices were generally adjusted once a year.
Customers would be individually notified about any changes.
“The changes are not uniform, because things like transmission and network charges vary around the country – and in some cases they do go down. The transmission and network charges are simply passed through by us.”
The standard change this year had been between 0.3 per cent and 1 per cent, he said.
Genesis Energy public affairs manager Richard Gordon said company was aware of gas price increases and were reviewing what to do. Pricing for customers with gas value fixed prices would not be under review, he said.
A spokeswoman for Mercury Energy said at this stage the company had no plans to increase gas costs for customers.