The 40-second answer
In New Zealand, peak power runs Monday to Friday, 7am–11am and 5pm–9pm. Power is cheapest overnight (about 9pm or 11pm to 7am) and on weekends, but only if you are on a time-of-use or night plan, on a flat-rate plan the price never changes. Several retailers give free windows: Electric Kiwi a free movable hour daily, Contact Good Nights free power 9pm–midnight, and Good Weekends free 9am–5pm on Saturday and Sunday.
Every window shown in the explorer is also in the retailer table below, so nothing is lost without JavaScript. Windows are indicative; confirm the current offer with the retailer.
Key takeaways
- Peak power is Mon–Fri 7–11am and 5–9pm. The early-evening peak is the most expensive time to use power on a time-of-use plan.
- Night is cheapest (about 9pm/11pm–7am), and weekends are often off-peak all day, but only on a time-of-use or night plan.
- Free windows exist: Electric Kiwi a free movable hour daily; Contact free 9pm–midnight (weeknights for new sign-ups) and free 9am–5pm weekends.
- EV owners win most: Genesis, Mercury, Meridian and Electric Kiwi MoveMaster all halve or discount overnight charging.
- Read the fine print: some free-power plans need a smart meter and exclude homes with solar, Contact Good Nights is not available to customers with distributed generation.
- Free hours are not free if the base rate is higher. Always compare total annual cost, not the perk.
How time-of-use pricing works, and how it hits your bill
On a standard plan, every unit of power costs the same whether you use it at 8am or 2am: one flat anytime rate. A time-of-use (TOU) plan splits the day into bands and charges a different rate in each. The bands reflect how stretched the national grid is: when everyone gets home, switches on heaters, cooks dinner and runs the dryer, demand spikes, so that window costs the most.
Most NZ plans use three rough bands:
Peak — dearest
Mon–Fri 7–11am and 5–9pm. The morning and evening rush, when the grid is busiest.
Off-peak — middling
Daytime between the peaks (roughly 11am–5pm) and the late evening. Cheaper than peak.
Night — cheapest
Overnight (about 9pm/11pm–7am) and often all weekend. Often half the peak rate, or free.
Here is the part that catches people out. A TOU plan does not just make the night cheap; it usually makes the peak dearer than a flat rate would be. The plan only saves you money if you genuinely move usage out of the 5–9pm peak and into the cheap bands. If your life is built around being home and busy at dinnertime with no way to shift load, a low flat rate is often the safer bet.
Peak, off-peak and night: the general windows
| Band | Typical times | Relative price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak | Mon–Fri 7–11am & 5–9pm | Highest | Nothing, avoid if you can |
| Off-peak (day) | Mon–Fri ~11am–5pm | Medium | Dishwasher, laundry, baking |
| Night | ~9pm/11pm–7am | Lowest | EV charging, hot water, heat-pump pre-heat |
| Weekend | All day Sat & Sun (many plans) | Low | Heavy chores, batch cooking |
Every major retailer's free and off-peak windows
These are the headline free and cheap windows currently. Plans and offers change, and some require a smart meter or an EV plan, or exclude homes with solar (see the fine print below), so confirm the current detail with the retailer before signing. This table mirrors the explorer above.
| Retailer | Free power | Cheap / night |
|---|---|---|
| Electric KiwiAll plans + MoveMaster | 1 free movable hour daily (pick any hour 9am–5pm or 9pm–7am, incl. weekends) | Half-price 11pm–7am (MoveMaster) |
| Contact EnergyGood Nights / Good Weekends | Free 9pm–midnight (Good Nights; Mon–Fri for sign-ups from Dec 2024, not with solar); free 9am–5pm Sat & Sun (Good Weekends) | Half-price 9pm–7am (Good Charge, EV) |
| MercuryEV Fuel Package | — | 20% off 9pm–7am nightly (EV plans) |
| GenesisEV plan | — | Half-price 11pm–7am nightly (EV) |
| MeridianEV plan | — | Discounted 9pm–7am nightly (EV) |
| Octopus EnergyTime-of-use | — | Night 11pm–7am; off-peak 11am–5pm & 9pm–11pm weekdays (cheaper weekends) |
| EcotricityecoSAVER | — | Off-peak 9pm–7am, 11am–5pm, and all day weekends |
| Pulse EnergyTime-of-use | Half-price all weekend (12am Sat–12am Mon) | Night 11pm–7am; off-peak 11am–5pm & 9pm–11pm |
Free hours of power, explained
"Free power" sounds like a gimmick, but for the right household it is genuine money saved. Two designs dominate the NZ market:
- A movable free hour (Electric Kiwi Hour of Power): one free hour every day that you pick yourself, any hour between 9am–5pm or 9pm–7am, weekends included. Put it where your biggest load sits, dinner cooking, the dryer, EV top-up, and that hour costs nothing;
- Fixed free windows (Contact Good Nights / Good Weekends): free power 9pm–midnight every night, plus free 9am–5pm on Saturday and Sunday on the weekend add-on. You cannot move these, so they suit night owls and weekend-at-home households.
The trap is treating "free hours" as proof a plan is cheapest. Retailers fund free windows by setting the plan's other rates a little higher. A plan with a free hour and a 30 c/kWh anytime rate can lose to a plain 26 c/kWh plan if you only shift a small load into the free window. The test is always the same: estimate your total annual cost on each plan for your real usage. Our guide to comparing electricity prices shows how.
The fine print can lock you out
The headline free hours are only half the deal. Free-power and time-of-use plans often carry eligibility conditions that have nothing to do with the price, and the one catching the most people out in New Zealand right now involves solar.
Contact's Good Nights is the clearest example. Its terms require an actively communicating smart meter and, in a line most customers never read, state the plan is "not available to customers with distributed generation and/or solar systems." Put panels on your roof and you become ineligible for one of the country's best-known free-power plans. The same terms also quietly narrowed the perk: customers who signed up on or after 5 December 2024 get free power 9pm–midnight on weeknights only, not every night of the week.
Smart meter?
Most free and night plans need an actively communicating smart meter, or you cannot join.
Solar excluded?
Some plans, Good Nights among them, are closed to homes with solar or any distributed generation.
Every day, or weekdays?
Check whether a free window runs all week or only Monday to Friday, it can change for new sign-ups.
It raises a fair question as rooftop panels spread, and as renters and apartment dwellers start eyeing plug-in "balcony" solar: should a household have to choose between generating its own power and reaching the cheapest plans? It also runs against where the rules are heading. From 1 July 2026, the Electricity Authority requires large retailers to pay fair rates for power exported at peak times, specifically to reward small-scale solar and batteries, so today's solar exclusions may not last.
If you have solar, or plan to add it, weigh the free hours against a strong buy-back rate: see our guides to the best power company for solar buy-back and solar panels in NZ.
Sources: Contact Good Nights plan terms; Electricity Authority consumer reforms. Confirm current terms with the retailer before signing.
The shift that is coming to every bill
Time-of-use pricing is about to stop being optional. The Electricity Authority now requires large retailers (those with 5% or more of the market, Contact, Meridian, Mercury and Genesis) to offer a time-of-use or off-peak pricing plan, with plans expected available to most New Zealanders from 1 July 2026 and full compliance by 30 October 2026. At the same time, the Low Fixed Charge phase-out (the low-user daily cap rising to $1.80/day, then the rule ending on 1 April 2027) is nudging the whole market away from "how much you use" and towards "when you use it".
Here is the non-obvious part: this is a quiet transfer of risk and reward to households that can shift load. If you have a smart meter (and almost all NZ homes do), an EV, a hot-water cylinder on a timer, or simply the discipline to run the dishwasher after 9pm, the next two years will reward you. If you cannot move usage out of the evening peak, a TOU plan can leave you worse off, and the safest response is a low flat rate, not the plan with the flashiest free-hours marketing. The reform rewards flexibility, not loyalty and not headlines.
Who should move to a time-of-use plan?
Time-of-use likely wins
- You own an EV you can charge overnight;
- You can run laundry, dishwasher and hot water off-peak;
- You are often out during the 5–9pm peak;
- You have solar or a home battery to time-shift.
A flat rate is safer
- Your home is busiest 5–9pm with no flexibility;
- Young kids, shift work or medical equipment fix your usage;
- You heat heavily in the early evening;
- You will not actually change your routine.
EV households almost always come out ahead on a night or free-hour plan, so start with our top EV electricity plans guide. Everyone else should model both a TOU plan and a low flat rate against their real usage before deciding.
The Selectra expert's take
Cornelia Zavoianu, energy market analyst
"Free hours are the most over-rated feature in the NZ market, and the most under-used. Over-rated because people sign up for the free hour and never move a single load into it, so they just pay the higher base rate. Under-used because the ones who do place their dryer, dishwasher and EV charge in the cheap or free window genuinely save."
"The window that matters most is the 5–9pm weekday peak. On a time-of-use plan that is where the plan claws back what it gives you overnight. If you can pull your big appliances out of that two-hour evening block, time-of-use pays. If you cannot, a low flat rate beats it. With the Electricity Authority requiring large retailers to offer off-peak plans through 2026, everyone will soon have the option, but the option only helps if your routine fits it."
This suits you if you have an EV, solar, or flexible chores. It becomes a risk when you chase a free perk while running everything at dinnertime. Windows here are indicative; confirm the exact times and rates with your retailer, as plans change."
Frequently asked questions
For most plans, peak power runs Monday to Friday, 7am–11am and 5pm–9pm. Everything outside those bands is off-peak, and the cheapest off-peak band is usually overnight, from around 9pm or 11pm to 7am. Exact windows vary by retailer and plan, so check yours: an Electric Kiwi customer's cheap hours differ from an Octopus or Contact customer's. Weekends are often off-peak all day.
A free hour of power is a daily window where electricity costs nothing. The best known is Electric Kiwi's Hour of Power: one free hour every day that you choose yourself (any hour between 9am–5pm or 9pm–7am, weekends included). Contact's Good Nights gives free power from 9pm to midnight (Monday to Friday for customers who signed up from 5 December 2024), and its Good Weekends adds free power 9am–5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Free hours are real savings if you can run big appliances then, but check that the plan's normal rates are not higher to pay for the freebie, and that you actually qualify.
Often not, and Good Nights is the headline example. Contact's terms state the plan is "not available to customers with distributed generation and/or solar systems", so installing rooftop solar makes you ineligible. Several free-hour and time-of-use plans assume you are a straightforward overnight consumer, and exporting your own power complicates how they settle your bill. If you have panels, or plan to add them, check each plan's eligibility terms first and weigh the free hours against a strong buy-back rate, see our best power company for solar buy-back guide. The wider rules are moving the other way: from 1 July 2026 the Electricity Authority requires large retailers to pay fair rates for power exported at peak times, specifically to reward small-scale solar and batteries.
Only if you are on a time-of-use or night plan. On a standard flat-rate (anytime) plan, you pay the same unit rate at 3am as at 6pm. Plans that reward night use, such as Genesis or Electric Kiwi MoveMaster (half-price 11pm–7am), Mercury and Meridian EV plans (9pm–7am), make overnight power genuinely cheaper, often half price. The catch: those plans usually charge more during the peak, so they pay off only if you can move usage to the night.
There is no single best, it depends on your routine. Electric Kiwi suits people who want a flexible free hour they can place where it helps most. Contact Good Nights / Good Weekends suits households at home in the evening or on weekends. EV owners are usually best on a dedicated night plan from Genesis, Mercury, Meridian or Electric Kiwi MoveMaster. Match the free or cheap window to when you actually use power, then compare total annual cost, not just the free perk.
Largely, yes. The Electricity Authority now requires large retailers (those with 5% or more of the market, including Contact, Meridian, Mercury and Genesis) to offer a time-of-use or off-peak pricing plan, with plans expected available to most New Zealanders from 1 July 2026 and full compliance required by 30 October 2026. So even if your retailer does not offer off-peak rates today, it is likely to during 2026.
