Blog » Who do you trust?
When you look at the electricity supply chain, who do we trust. The national grid operator (Transpower, in New Zealand) is up there, making it all work is what they do, get the power from source to your region. But they are a long way from the consumer, chances are not many people know who they are or what they do and that's fine, it's a government agency providing a core backbone service.
At the other end of the scale is the retailer, we get emails, letters and bills from them, we know who they are because we chose them, we may even have exercised our consumer right and changed retailer to achieve a better outcome (lower cost normally), but they are also the ones that annoy us. Complex bills, high one month, low the next for no apparent rhyme or reason (well not than we can work out if we don't have access to a smart energy platform!). And, are we really on the right plan? Is this the best my retailer can do? Should I really change to another retailer? Will another retailers plan be better for me specifically, not my demographic or my area, but ME? And if I ask these questions will my retailer tell me the honest truth, or just try to convince me to stay where I am? Don't get me wrong, I like the retailer that I have chosed, but I'm just as likely to choose differently again.
In the middle is the distribution or lines company, they get the power to my door and provide the infrastructure for the retailers to provide me with my services. I trust my lines company, I live in Christchurch and when my city was hit by an earthquake which killed 180 and injured hundreds more our lines company, Orion, got the power back onto essential services and domestic homes in an incredibly short time. It repaired and in some cases build new entire new lines to the severely damaged parts of the city. I thank them, I trust them. In the electricity ecosystem they are my trusted party.
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