Billing and payments

If you're on the EV at home plan

Customers on the EV at home plan will be billed monthly. You'll get your bill emailed to you on the second Tuesday of the month, with the invoiced amount debited on the third Thursday of the month (nine days later).

If you're on the Fuel back home plan

On this plan you'll be billed fortnightly. Your bill will be emailed to you every second Tuesday and the invoiced amount will be debited that Thursday (two days later).

Reading your bill

There's a bill details summary at the top of the email that includes: 

• Billing period
• Your electricity usage for that period, which is calculated in kilowatt-hours (kWh)
• What you owe, including GST
• When your bill is due
• Your payment method

The email will have a PDF attached with more detail about: 

• Meter usage charges, this is based on how many kWh you have used
• Daily charge, this includes the fees we charge as your retailer as well as the Electricity Authority levy
• GST - most power companies exclude GST in their pricing, but we don't reckon that's right so we try to include it where it makes sense. However on your bill we add GST separately to make it easy for you to compare with other providers and see how the costs break down before tax is added

If for some reason you can't find your bill or you need a summary of your bills for a particular time period, get in touch with us by email at powerbills@z.co.nz.

Something not right?

We want to make sure you get great service and products at all times so if there's an issue, let us know so we can fix it for you.

Once you’ve told us about your concern, we‘ll investigate it and try to resolve it as quickly and fairly as possible.

If we can’t resolve it straight away, or if the problem is complicated, we’ll give you an estimate of how long it will take us to investigate it.

We’ll let you know who will be responsible for managing the issue for you, and that person will keep in regular contact with you until your complaint has been resolved. You can contact our complaints team by emailing helpwithpower@z.co.nz.

Z is part of the disputes resolution scheme operated by Utilities Disputes Limited. If for some reason we can't resolve your complaint or problem within 20 working days you can take your complaint to Utilities Disputes, who provide a free independent complaints resolution service. You contact them here.

Unexpected circumstances

We understand that unexpected costs come up from time to time, which might mean you need a payment arrangement. If this is the case, please get in touch with us to discuss payment options. You can reach us by email at powerbills@z.co.nz.

Vulnerable customers

A 'vulnerable customer' may have real difficulty paying the bill – (even just for a short time) or is likely to suffer if the electricity is disconnected (this can be due to age, health, or disability).

If you or someone in your home is a vulnerable customer, we'll work with you to try to ensure your electricity is not disconnected if bills are unpaid.

This means:

• We'll try to find different payment options to make it easier for you, we'll make sure you're referred to Work and Income for financial assistance, and with your approval, we can deal with an authorised contact on your behalf if there's someone else who can help.
• An authorised contact is someone like a family member, friend or adviser who you're happy for us to talk to about your account. They're not responsible for paying your bill, but can help advise you, and talk to us on your behalf.
• It's important to know that being a vulnerable customer doesn't mean that your electricity can never be cut off – but it does mean we'll work together to try to make sure it doesn't get to that stage. 

If you're a medically dependent or vulnerable customer, please let us know as soon as possible by sending us an email at helpwithpower@z.co.nz and we'll send you the paperwork that needs to be completed by your doctor or specialist.

Changing your details

If you're moving address, need to change your contact details or want to close your account, contact us at helpwithpower@z.co.nz and the team will get it sorted for you. 

Moving your meter

If you require a meter relocation, replacement, reseal or manual tariff change, you'll need to email us at helpwithpower@z.co.nz with a few details such as what work you’re having done and the name of your electrician. We’ll go from there and let you know if we’re able to raise the job, any fees involved and what more we might need from you.

Issues with your meter

The smart meter at your house sends a data file using the cellular network (usually 2G) to a party called the Meter Equipment Provider (MEP) every day.

The MEP usually will pass this data file on to us within a day or two. This Daily data file contains how much power was used at half hour increments and a reading taken at midnight of the running total of consumption at the property.

We use the half-hourly data to calculate your bills but now and again there could be a communication issue that interrupts this process: 

• A lot of meters communicate on old cell phone networks so anything that might temporarily or permanently interrupt cell service could also affect your meter communicating.
• Some meters communicate in networks with each other called a mesh network, information is passed from one meter to another to where it's collected. If one of the meters in this network stops communicating then this can cause communication issues for other meters in the mesh network too.
• A data delivery issue that might prevent the delivery of data from the meter company that owns your meter to us.

Never fear, if there is ever any missing data our clever system will jump in and automatically estimate the missing data, using up to the previous four weeks of your power usage data (we’ve added a bit more about how we estimate down the bottom). What we do about a lack of missing data can change depending on your specific circumstances:

• Small amount of missing data: Normally our system only needs to estimate for a short period as the communication issue is short lived. In this case, the previously estimated data is replaced by the accurate backdated meter data coming in, or, if we start receiving data again and it's not backdated we will adjust our estimates in line with the new information we’ve received to be as accurate as possible.
• Ongoing communication Issue: If we aren’t receiving meter data for more than 10 consecutive days, then we need to investigate why. You’ll most likely hear from us if this is the case as it’s likely a technician may need to attend your meter to resolve the issue.

Estimating bills

While the issue's being resolved, your bills will continue to be estimated but when everything is fixed we'll bill again with the back-dated accurate meter data and apply the credit or debit where relevant. In the instance  we start receiving data again and it's not backdated, we'll rebill our estimates in line with the new information we’ve received to be as accurate as possible.

In rare cases, our system may not have enough historical meter data to estimate your half hourly data, in this circumstance we will need to manually estimate your usage. To make things simple, we calculate the difference between meter reads we’ve previously received, estimated, or asked for.