Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said the announcement yesterday made a mockery of all of the claims made before last year's election by Labour and Green MPs who warned partial privatisation of energy companies would mean higher prices.
Last week, Mighty River Power announced it was not increasing its base electricity prices, the third consecutive year of keeping base prices stable.
It did warn, however, that price rises could come from local authorities and lines companies, such as Transpower. Mr Timms said Mighty River Power had showed it was not completely driven by profit.
''The company has a social conscience. It recognises things are tough out there. It wants a return for investors but not at the expense of all of the customers,'' he said.
Mighty River Power general manager customer James Munro said the company was matching the flexibility of its globally leading pre-pay technology with a rate that was, and would continue to be, among the cheapest in the market.
In addition to being available to an estimated 495,000 homes nationwide with one or more community services card holders, the new pricing would be extended to all 18,000 Globug customers.
''Our new community services card offer will put cash back in the pockets of Kiwi families and is a powerful budgeting and energy-efficient tool for customers.''
Globug worked like a pre-pay mobile phone. Customers could use the app or website or call to manage their account, he said.
There had been recent interest in the technology from overseas, including from Australia, where a successful trial was recently carried out with a retailer. The technology was developed in-house by Mighty River Power.
Green Party energy spokesman Gareth Hughes said he welcomed the ''step in the right direction'' but he wanted to see the scale of the discount once the information was loaded on to the powerswitch.org.nz website.
Location made a large difference to how power was charged.
''It highlights the problem New Zealand has with pre-pay electricity, which can be 40% to 60% more expensive than post-pay. It's unfair.''
Mr Hughes was advocating for a code of conduct to protect low-income users and help them avoid getting their power cut off in times of hardship.
The Otago Daily Times was told Labour's energy spokesman, Stuart Nash, was busy with caucus and an email sent to the party's media unit got no response.
