What is a good price per kWh for business electricity in NZ in 2026?

There isn't one number. As at October 2026, the latest official figure from MBIE puts the average cost of electricity for commercial users at 25.54 cents per kWh, excluding GST, for the year to March 2026. That is one average for the whole commercial sector, worked out from total sales. What your business pays per kWh depends on your lines network, the price category your connection sits in, when you use power, and how much of your bill is daily, capacity or demand charges.

What is the official average business electricity price in New Zealand?

MBIE uses sales-based data to monitor average residential, commercial and industrial electricity costs: "essentially total electricity sales divided by the quantity of electricity supplied". Its prices include applicable taxes and levies. MBIE excludes GST for commercial and industrial users, because those sectors can generally reclaim it, and includes it for households.

Source: MBIE, Energy prices data tables, nominal annual prices by March year (page last updated 10 September 2026).

MBIE reports industrial users separately, and splits its industrial figure into sectors such as agriculture, food processing, and building and construction, whose averages differ widely from one another. A national sector average hides that kind of spread.

So treat 25.54 cents as context, not a target. It is one figure for the whole commercial sector across New Zealand: total sales divided by total kWh, not the price of any particular connection. A business can sit above or below it with nothing wrong with its deal.

Why is there no single good price per kWh?

Because a kWh does not cost the same on every network, or at every hour. Your ICP decides which network you are on, and that network's prices come with it. Vector, for example, publishes one schedule for its Auckland and Northern networks and supplies each connection from one or the other according to where it physically is. You can see which lines companies serve each region.

Within one network, the price category matters too. These are Vector's Auckland network distribution prices from 1 April 2026, excluding GST. They do not include energy or metering charges, and Vector prices transmission separately:

Source: Vector, Pricing Schedule and Policy v2026.1.

Those are Vector's "Auckland" network prices. Its "Northern" network prices commercial low-voltage time-of-use connections differently: $14.67 a day and 0.97 cents per kWh, with the same capacity and demand prices. Our Auckland guide covers the city's networks in more detail.

On the general time-of-use prices, peak periods run from 7am to 11am in June to August and from 5pm to 10pm in May to September, every day including public holidays. A kWh used then carries 10.47 cents of distribution charge; one used off-peak carries none. On the commercial prices the per-kWh charge is small, 1.69 cents, and Vector adds capacity and demand charges per kVA per day instead, plus a power factor charge. Its demand charge is set by a site's highest weekday demands each month; our guide to demand charges explains how Vector measures that peak.

Network prices are only part of what you pay. Vector's schedule covers its distribution services where your retailer has an agreement with Vector, and it leaves out energy charges for the electricity you use and metering equipment charges. For how networks set their prices, see lines charges explained.

How do daily and demand charges change your real cost per kWh?

Fixed charges are spread across every unit you use, so the less power you use, the more each kWh effectively costs. MBIE makes the point in its household cost data: because some parts of bills are fixed daily costs, when demand is lower "the average cost per unit used is higher".

MBIE's method notes for its household price survey show the arithmetic with an illustration. A retailer charging 100 cents a day plus 22 c/kWh costs an 8,000 kWh-a-year customer $2,125 a year, or 26.6 c/kWh once the daily charge is counted, GST included. It is a worked example of the sum, not a current price and not a business price.

Capacity and demand charges work the same way, but they are set by the size of your connection and by how hard your site draws power at its busiest, not by how many kWh it uses. A site with sharp peaks pays more per kWh in demand charges than one drawing the same energy steadily.

How do you work out your own price per kWh?

Take a full bill, or better, 12 months of bills:

1. Add up everything you were charged: energy, daily, lines, capacity, demand, power factor and any levy charges.
2. Add up the kWh billed across every time band.
3. Divide the dollars by the kWh, then multiply by 100 to get cents per kWh.

That all-in figure is your real price for that site, and it is the number to hold each offer against, run on the same usage. It is not comparable with MBIE's 25.54 cents, which is the whole commercial sector's sales divided by its kWh, so it cannot tell you whether one connection's price is right. Keep GST on one basis throughout; MBIE and Vector both publish business prices excluding GST.

Use a full year if you can. On Vector's general time-of-use prices every peak period falls between May and September, so a winter bill and a summer bill can give different answers.

If your bill doesn't break the charges out, ask your retailer for the detail. Our guide to reading a business power bill walks through each line.

How should you judge a quote?

Not on the headline rate alone. Line each offer up against your own usage and ask:

• What does the c/kWh cover? Energy only, or energy plus lines charges? Are network costs passed through separately?
• Is there a time-of-use split? If the rate changes by time band, what share of your kWh falls in each band?
• What is the daily charge? On a low-use site, it is the charge that adds most to each kWh.
• Are there capacity, demand or power factor charges? They are priced per kVA or kVAr, not per kWh, so they never show in the headline rate.
• Is the price quoted with or without GST?

Then apply each offer's charges to the same 12 months of usage and compare the totals. An offer with a lower c/kWh but a higher daily or demand charge can still produce the bigger bill.

To see where your own connection stands, our savings calculator starts from your address or ICP. You can also see what we compare for business electricity.