Genesis Energy review

Genesis Energy is the second-largest electricity retailer in New Zealand and one of its major generators. It is listed on the NZX, majority Crown-owned, and it sells an unusually wide spread of household energy: electricity, piped natural gas, bottled LPG, broadband and mobile.

What Genesis Energy actually offers

The plan range is broad. Genesis publishes separate terms for a long list of residential plans, including its Energy plans, EV and EV Home plans for households charging a vehicle, and Bach plans for holiday homes that sit empty much of the year.

The thing that genuinely sets Genesis apart is fuel coverage. It sells both piped natural gas for homes on the reticulated network and bottled LPG for homes that are not. Very few retailers do both, and for a rural or semi-rural household running gas bottles for cooking and hot water, having them on the same account as the power is a practical simplification rather than a marketing point.

Broadband and mobile are also available, so Genesis can be the whole utility relationship.

We have not been able to confirm a single sign-up credit or a standard contract term that applies across the range. Genesis runs plan-specific offers with their own published terms, and we would rather leave those blank than print a number that is wrong for the plan you are actually offered.

Who it suits

Genesis suits households with gas in any form. If you are on mains gas, or if you run 45kg LPG bottles, Genesis can cover it, and covering it in one place is usually cheaper and always simpler than running two suppliers.

It suits EV households, because there is a plan written for them rather than a general plan you hope works out.

And it suits people who want one provider for everything, with the scale and infrastructure of a large, long-established company behind it.

What to watch

The plan range takes reading. Genesis publishes a lot of plans, each with its own terms document. That is a sign of a company covering many different household situations properly, but it does mean the plan you are offered may not be the plan you assumed, and the differences are in the terms rather than on the front page.

Check the term before you assume you can leave. Some Genesis plans are fixed-term. A fixed term is not automatically bad, and it can buy price certainty. But it is a commitment, and it is worth knowing you have made one.

Bottled LPG and piped gas are different products with different pricing and different availability. Make sure you are being quoted for the one your house actually has.

How Genesis Energy compares

Against Contact and Mercury, Genesis competes on much the same ground: a big generator-retailer selling power, gas and telco together. Its distinguishing feature within that group is bottled LPG, which extends its reach to homes off the gas network entirely.

Against the independents, Genesis offers breadth and scale rather than a single sharp structural idea like Electric Kiwi's free hour.

As with every company we list, we do not yet show what Genesis power costs. Electricity is priced by network region, user type and meter configuration, and we are collecting rate files from the companies directly rather than estimating. Until then, compare on what is verifiable: the fuel coverage, the EV and bach plans, the bundling, and confirm the numbers and the term with Genesis before you commit.