Power prices by region: what all 42 NZ centres pay per kWh
There is no such thing as a New Zealand electricity price. There are 42 of them, and the gap between the ends is not small: Balclutha pays 52.5c/kWh while Wellington City pays 37.0c - a 42% difference for an identical unit of electricity delivered by the same national grid. On the 7,100 kWh a typical household gets through in a year, that spread is worth about $1,101.
The table below is every centre MBIE surveys, from the May 2026 release. It is sortable - tap a column heading to reorder it.
What decides the number
A retail power price is three costs stacked on top of each other, and only one of them varies much by where you live.
- Generation and retail - the electricity itself, plus your retailer's margin and cost of serving you. Traded on a national market, so it is broadly the same whether you are in Kaitaia or Bluff.
- Transmission - moving power along Transpower's national grid. Varies somewhat, but it is the smallest of the three.
- Distribution - the local poles and wires between the grid exit point and your meter, owned by your lines company. This is the one that moves, and it is why this table has a 42% spread in it.
Distribution costs are overwhelmingly fixed: the network has to be built and maintained whether or not anyone is drawing power through it. What changes region to region is how many paying connections that fixed cost is divided between, and how much line it takes to reach them. A compact city network like Wellington Electricity's or Orion's in central Christchurch has short runs and dense connections. A network like OtagoNet's around Balclutha, or Top Energy's in the Far North, has long rural spans serving comparatively few households - and the same maintenance bill has to come out of far fewer accounts.
This is worth saying plainly because it changes what you can do about it: you cannot shop for a different lines company. Your network is decided by where your house physically is. What you can shop for is the retailer sitting on top of it.
Every surveyed centre
| Lines company | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balclutha | OtagoNet | 52.52 +25% | 42.94 | $1.61 |
| Kerikeri | Top Energy | 50.56 +20% | 46.57 | $1.63 |
| Cromwell | Aurora Energy | 48.81 +16% | 41.18 | $1.55 |
| Waipukurau | Centralines | 48.37 +15% | 43.16 | $1.57 |
| Greymouth | Westpower | 48.29 +15% | 40.55 | $1.65 |
| Gisborne | Firstlight Network | 48.25 +15% | 40.05 | $1.62 |
| Masterton | Powerco | 47.97 +14% | 39.12 | $1.58 |
| Hawera | Powerco | 47.88 +14% | 35.64 | $1.53 |
| Westport | Buller Electricity | 47.24 +12% | 44.23 | $1.64 |
| Blenheim | Marlborough Lines | 47.00 +12% | 39.30 | $1.60 |
| Dannevirke | Scanpower | 46.19 +10% | 37.70 | $1.57 |
| Taumarunui | The Lines Company | 45.92 +9% | 38.87 | $1.58 |
| Otorohanga | The Lines Company | 45.92 +9% | 38.87 | $1.58 |
| Pukekohe | Counties Power | 45.55 +8% | 38.67 | $1.59 |
| Rangiora | MainPower NZ | 45.39 +8% | 36.97 | $1.55 |
| Tauranga | Powerco | 45.03 +7% | 36.01 | $1.63 |
| Kaiapoi | MainPower NZ | 45.01 +7% | 36.97 | $1.55 |
| Oamaru | Network Waitaki | 44.66 +6% | 34.48 | $1.59 |
| Paraparaumu | Electra | 44.43 +6% | 36.69 | $1.54 |
| Whangarei | Northpower | 44.37 +6% | 36.96 | $1.58 |
| Thames | Powerco | 44.03 +5% | 36.61 | $1.56 |
| Winton | The Power Company | 43.98 +5% | 37.04 | $1.61 |
| Whanganui | Powerco | 43.82 +4% | 37.19 | $1.56 |
| Cambridge | Waipa Networks | 43.61 +4% | 36.86 | $1.56 |
| Whakatane | Horizon Energy | 43.24 +3% | 35.23 | $1.59 |
| Timaru | Alpine Energy | 43.13 +3% | 34.62 | $1.61 |
| New Plymouth | Powerco | 43.04 +2% | 35.64 | $1.53 |
| Rotorua | Unison Networks | 42.76 +2% | 35.11 | $1.58 |
| Taupo | Unison Networks | 42.74 +2% | 35.56 | $1.59 |
| Palmerston North | Powerco | 42.73 +2% | 34.71 | $1.56 |
| Dunedin | Aurora Energy | 42.43 +1% | 32.62 | $1.59 |
| Queenstown | Aurora Energy | 42.27 +1% | 34.54 | $1.58 |
| Auckland North Shore | Vector | 41.20 -2% | 31.77 | $1.59 |
| Auckland Central | Vector | 41.18 -2% | 31.79 | $1.63 |
| Napier | Unison Networks | 41.14 -2% | 34.54 | $1.57 |
| Hamilton | WEL Networks | 39.76 -5% | 32.68 | $1.54 |
| Richmond | Network Tasman | 39.44 -6% | 32.73 | $1.60 |
| Invercargill | Electricity Invercargill | 38.82 -8% | 30.55 | $1.62 |
| Nelson | Network Tasman | 38.78 -8% | 32.73 | $1.60 |
| Christchurch | Orion New Zealand | 38.53 -8% | 28.67 | $1.53 |
| Ashburton | Electricity Ashburton | 38.06 -9% | 29.57 | $1.59 |
| Wellington City | Wellington Electricity | 37.01 -12% | 29.79 | $1.55 |
Percentages compare each centre to the national average of 42.04c/kWh. All figures GST inclusive.
Why there are two different rates in that table
The two right-hand columns are not a second opinion on the first one. They measure different things, and mixing them up is the single most common error in NZ power-bill arithmetic.
The blended figure is MBIE's: total annual bill divided by units used, with the daily fixed charge folded in. It is the right number for comparing one region against another, because it captures everything a household actually pays.
The variable figure is what your retailer charges for one more unit, with the daily charge broken out separately alongside it. That is the number that matters when you are deciding whether to run the dryer, because your daily charge is identical either way - it is a cost of having a connection, not of using it. Bill an appliance at the blended rate and you overstate what it costs you by roughly a sixth. That is why the appliance running cost table prices everything at the variable rate, not this page's headline one.
The ends of the table
At the expensive end, the pattern is consistent: Balclutha, Kerikeri, Cromwell, Waipukurau, Greymouth. Small rural networks, long lines, few connections. Several are also served by lines companies with genuinely difficult terrain to maintain - the West Coast and Central Otago networks both carry weather and access costs that a flat urban network does not.
At the cheap end sit Wellington City, Ashburton, Christchurch, Nelson and Invercargill. Some of that is density, but not all: Ashburton and Invercargill are not big cities. What they share is compact, consumer-trust-owned networks over flat, easily-accessed ground, and in several cases lines companies that return discounts to connected customers.
Auckland and Wellington sit lower in this table than most people expect. Big-city power is not expensive power in New Zealand - the density that makes housing dear is exactly what makes distribution cheap.
What to actually do about your own rate
Since the network component is fixed for you, everything you can control lives in the other two-thirds of the bill:
- Compare retailers. On the same network, plans differ by more than most people assume. Powerswitch is Consumer NZ's free, independent comparison, and we earn nothing from sending you there. See also our guide on how switching actually works.
- Check your tariff shape. The low fixed charge regulations are being phased out, and the break-even between low-user and standard plans has moved a long way. Most households that were correctly on a low-user plan a few years ago should re-check the sums.
- Look at when you use power, not just how much. If your network and retailer offer a night rate or a free-hour plan, shifting the dishwasher, laundry and any EV charging is worth more than most efficiency tweaks. Details here.
To put your own rate against your own appliances rather than a typical household's, open the calculator and pick your centre - all 42 in this table are in the picker, and you can override the rate with the exact figure off your bill.