Marvellous Lovely Power Co targets Pacific Island churches in discount payment scheme

Friday 20th April 2012

Marvellous Lovely Power Co, a West Auckland-based company, is targeting Pacific Island churches under a prompt payment discount scheme with electricity retailer Pulse Utilities to help congregations cut their power bills.

The Henderson-based Tuvalu Christian Church will be the first congregation to switch its electricity supplier to Just Energy, the trading name of NZX listed metering service Pulse on June 4.

Dene Biddlecombe, chief executive at Pulse Utilities said the money saved will allow the church to invest in community funded initiatives.

“This is a way for them to get sustainable earnings to promote a tertiary college,” he said.

Marvellous Lovely, which changed is name from Undici in May last year, has one director and shareholder, Kate Payne, according to the Companies Office.

“A group of like-minded individuals came up with a commercial method of sustainably supporting necessary social development which is based on the concept of community capitalism,” Payne told BusinessDesk in an emailed statement. Marvellous Lovely is run as a commercial entity, she said.

Other groups have looked to cut energy costs for their members, including lobby group Grey Power, which told TVNZ this month it’s contemplating establishing a power company after a major upgrade by the state-owned Transpower drove up electricity prices.

Grey Power’s national president Roy Reid said it is looking to "run a company that distributes on the power networks - we would only need to gather in enough profit to maintain the cost of the supply."

Both Payne and Pulse said they want to expand their scheme.

“With a strong response from the Tuvaluan community already we have also received expressions of interest from a number of other communities looking to sustainably fund their own initiatives,” Payne said.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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