Ask what it costs to run an oven in New Zealand and you will get a confident number from somebody who has no idea what you pay for electricity. That is the whole problem. The running cost of any cooking method is the appliance's power draw multiplied by the time it runs, multiplied by your own rate per unit, and only the last of those three is set by somebody else. This guide gives you the calculation, ranks the methods on the terms that actually decide them, and then spends most of its length on the lever that moves the total further than swapping an appliance ever will. For households trying to get a winter quarter under control, I am Beezy pays a small amount for each piece of content you consult on your phone, which is a way of chipping at the bill rather than the cooking.
The only formula that answers the question
Watts, hours and your own rate
Every electrical appliance carries a rating plate, usually on the back or underneath, giving its power draw in watts. Divide that by 1,000 to get kilowatts, multiply by the hours it actually runs, and you have the kilowatt hours consumed. Multiply that by the price per kilowatt hour on your own bill and you have the cost. A 2,000 watt appliance running for half an hour uses one kilowatt hour, whatever anyone else pays for it.
Why nobody can give you a national figure
New Zealand has no single regulated household electricity price. Retailers set their own rates, plans differ in how they split fixed daily charges from usage charges, and the delivery component varies by network area. That is why an honest guide gives you the method rather than a number: the number is on your invoice, and it is the only one that applies to your kitchen. With annual inflation at 4.1% in the June 2026 quarter, above the Reserve Bank's 1 to 3% target band, a figure copied from an article written two years ago would mislead you twice over.
Which cooking method wins, and when?
Heating the food or heating the room
The ranking follows one principle: the less of the appliance and the surrounding air you have to heat to get the food hot, the less it costs. A full-size oven brings a large insulated box and its shelves up to temperature before the food benefits. A microwave puts energy almost entirely into the food. Everything else sits between those two poles, and knowing where a method sits tells you more than any published table of averages.
Small enclosed spaces beat large ones
This is why benchtop ovens and air fryers do well on a single portion and badly on a family roast. The saving comes from the volume being heated, so it disappears the moment you have to run two batches. If you are cooking for four in a rural household where the nearest supermarket is a drive away and batch cooking is normal, the full oven used once often beats the small appliance used three times.
Slow and low against fast and hot
A slow cooker draws very little power but runs for many hours, while a hob burner draws a great deal for a short time, and the two can land in the same place. Work it out rather than assuming. The slow cooker usually wins on tough cuts because it also lets you buy cheaper meat, which is a saving on the grocery bill rather than the power bill but spends identically.
| Method | Where to find its rating | What drives the cost | When it tends to win |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-size electric oven | Plate on the door frame or rear panel | Preheat time plus cavity volume | Batch cooking, several dishes at once |
| Induction or ceramic hob | Plate underneath or in the manual | Watts per ring and time at full power | Fast cooking, boiling, one-pan meals |
| Microwave | Rear label, note input not output watts | Almost pure time at rated power | Reheating and small portions |
| Air fryer or benchtop oven | Underside label | Small cavity, short preheat | One or two portions, never a batch |
| Slow cooker | Base of the unit | Low draw over long hours | Cheap cuts, unattended cooking |
| Electric kettle | Base or handle label | Volume of water boiled | Always, if you boil only what you need |
| Solid fuel range | No rating plate; fuel bought by weight | Delivered price of firewood or coal | When it is heating the house anyway |
| Bottled gas hob | No rating plate; fuel bought by bottle | Bottle price and refill or swap terms | Where the power supply is unreliable |
The rural complications the comparisons leave out
Solid fuel when the range is also the heating
A wood range that is already alight to warm the house is close to free for cooking, because the fuel is being burned regardless. Light it purely to cook a meal in February and the same range is the most expensive option in the kitchen. The accounting question is whether the fire has another job. If it does, cook on it; if it does not, do not.
Bottled gas and reticulated gas are two different questions
Whether piped gas reaches your address is an address-level fact, not a regional one, and it is worth confirming with the network rather than assuming from what a neighbour has. Bottled gas is available far more widely, but the economics turn on the refill or swap arrangement and the delivered price to your area, which is exactly the sort of figure that varies enough to make a published average useless. Ask two suppliers for a delivered price to your road before deciding anything.
Off-peak rates only help if your meter can see them
Plans that charge less at night, or that include a free hour of power, need half-hourly data. The Electricity Authority states plainly that you may need a smart meter to switch to a new plan or power company, giving time of use plans with a free hour of power or reduced overnight rates as its example. If your property still has an older meter, shifting the slow cooker to overnight saves nothing until the meter changes.
There is a second rural argument for keeping a non-electric option in the kitchen, and it has nothing to do with cost. A household at the end of a long rural feeder loses power more often and gets it back later than one in town, and a bottled gas ring or a range that burns wood is the difference between a hot meal and a cold one during an outage. That is worth paying a small running premium for, and it is a reason not to remove the old cooking method when a cheaper one arrives. Keep it serviceable, keep a full bottle or a dry stack, and treat it as insurance rather than as your daily choice.
Changing your rate is worth more than changing your appliance
The free comparison site run by the regulator
New Zealand is unusual in having a public comparison tool. The Electricity Authority describes Billy as its own free power comparison website, and it says that on average it takes just three to four days for a switch to take place. The consumer association runs a second, Powerswitch, which sits at the top of the local search results for power company comparison, ahead of the commercial comparison sites. Between them you have two channels with no commission to earn from the outcome.
Compare the two halves of the price separately
A quoted plan is really two numbers: a fixed daily charge you pay whether or not you cook anything, and a rate for each unit you use. Households compare the second and ignore the first, which is how a plan with an attractive unit rate ends up costing more than the one it replaced. Work out your own annual consumption from a full year of bills, then price each offer as the daily charge multiplied by 365 plus your units multiplied by the unit rate. A rural household that runs a water pump, a freezer and a woodshed workshop has a very different profile from a town flat, and the plan that suits one is frequently wrong for the other.
What the retail market actually looks like
The Electricity Authority publishes each retailer's share of active connection points every month, in the open. At 30 June 2026 the picture was four large retailers and a long tail.
| Retailer | Connection points | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | 595,666 | 25.16% |
| Genesis Energy | 519,868 | 21.96% |
| Contact Energy | 476,490 | 20.13% |
| Meridian Energy | 461,400 | 19.49% |
| Nova Energy | 83,561 | 3.53% |
| Pulse Energy Alliance | 80,207 | 3.39% |
| Electric Kiwi | 69,412 | 2.93% |
| 2degrees | 57,340 | 2.42% |
Source: Electricity Authority, EMI retail market share, 30 June 2026. Adding the first four gives roughly 87% of connections, a total the Authority does not publish as such but which follows from its own figures. More than forty entities are tracked and every one below this list holds under 1%, which is where entrants such as Octopus Energy NZ, Toast Electric and Powershop sit.
Paying down a winter power bill with I am Beezy
A daily amount against a quarterly shock
Cooking is a modest share of a rural power bill, and the honest advice is that no appliance swap rescues a bad quarter. The mechanism on I am Beezy fits in one sentence: you consult content in the app, whether video, article or advertising, and each consultation earns a sum that lands on the payment method you already use. Earnings on the platform typically fall between 5 and 15 euros a day. At the European Central Bank reference rate of 1 euro to 1.9680 New Zealand dollars on 5 August 2026, that is somewhere near NZ$10 to NZ$30 a day, and the rate is worth rechecking rather than assuming.
What it does not do
It does not change your tariff, and it will not offset a plan that was wrong for your household to begin with. Use it alongside a switch, not instead of one. It is also income, which in New Zealand is taxed from the first dollar, since the scale published by Inland Revenue has no tax-free band.
What should you change first?
This week
Read the rating plates on the four appliances you use most and write the watts on a sheet on the fridge. Find the per unit rate on your last bill. You now have everything needed to settle any cooking argument in your own kitchen without consulting anybody.
This month
Run your details through the public comparison site and the consumer association's one, and compare what both return against your current plan. Before committing, check the three things the Authority flags: whether a fixed term contract carries a break fee, whether the plan you want needs a smart meter, and whether a meter would have to be installed. Electricity is the sector where New Zealanders move most, with about 19% switching retailer in the year to 30 June 2025, against roughly 11% for fixed internet and 7% for mobile.
Before next winter
If you are considering a bundle that packages power with internet, note the regulator's warning that savings on the telecommunications side can be offset by higher energy prices. Price the two separately first, then price the bundle, and only then decide. And if you would rather the first month of the new plan were already covered before it starts, putting a couple of quiet evenings a week into I am Beezy is an uncomplicated way to get there.
