Flick’s spot price plan, Freestyle, and our array of smart tools have helped the Andersons save $328 on their power bill.
Tonelle and Trent Anderson live in Dunedin with their 3-year-old daughter Kenzie. They’ve been with Flick since August 2016, and in that time have saved $328 (as at November 2017, on Flick’s spot price product, Freestyle) in comparison to what they would have paid with their former electricity provider. Needless to say, they’re loving #FlickLife.
Both Tonelle and Trent work full-time and are avid tech users - so much so they’ve even created an app of their own. Pinpoint is a very cool personal location system that users wear around their wrist on trips into the bush or mountains (check it out on their Facebook page). As tech-savvy parents, it makes sense that Tonelle and Trent are big fans of Flick’s app, which lets Wholesale Flicksters know the real-time spot price of their electricity. Tonelle says, ‘The app is easy to use, transparent and clear. It shows us any current price alerts so we can make decisions about how and when we use our power. If the spot price is looking good, we’ll make a decision to turn on the heat pumps and not use the gas fire, for example.”
Yup, these are some seriously #CleverFlickers!
Because they both work during the day, Trent and Tonelle have their appliances on timers to make sure they use a good portion of their power at off-peak times, like during the night, when it’s cheaper. They’ve got load shifting down to a fine art: heaters on timers, running their dryer in the small hours, turning the dishwasher on just before they go to bed and keeping the heat pumps going overnight. Take a look at the chart below to get an idea of how different times of the day can affect power prices.
The spot price of power is lower at off-peak times, when demand is low (like in the wee small hours of the night!). Save yourself even more money with Flick by adjusting your usage to those hours!
And since joining Flick, the Andersons are more aware of the environmental impact of their electricity use. A big part of that is down to the Flick app, which in addition to keeping Flicksters up to speed with the spot price, also features Carbon Tracker - a tool that allows users to see the current carbon emission levels in our air generated by the electricity industry, from the type of generation we’re using (clean or dirty!). Tonelle says, “We’re now far more conscious about the electricity we consume – it’s been a real eye-opener and educational tool for us, as we weren’t aware of the impact electricity usage has on the New Zealand environment!”.
But their #CleverFlicker status doesn’t stop there. Trent and Tonelle also use their Flick dashboard - which tracks usage and shows them what they’ve spent each day - to help them with their budgeting. Tonelle says, “It helps by allowing us to keep track of our weekly spend. And we can also keep track of our savings too.” (‘Cos who doesn’t love watching their savings mount up?!).
Being smarter with your power is too easy with Flick. It’s what we’re all about, after all! Simple tricks like using your app to see when the spot price of electricity is low, and load-shifting to those times, can be the difference between saving a little and saving a lot. Access to the wholesale price of electricity means that you can still do the things you need to do without the premium price tag of set rates. You gotta love that!