A new power company? No.

Out of the blue comes Budgie Power – a new power company with a clever “we’ll match the cheapest price in your region for a year” campaign.

Shame about the ever-churning home page though.

I wondered who this upstart was – so I clicked the “Meet Budgie” menu item, which really didn’t help:

On the other hand they do supply, as you are meant to, the company name. So as is normal for me, the next step is to go to the Companies Office via Coys.

But it seems this company does not actually exist – so I’m not sure this is within the rules now.

They did leave a PO Box on their contact-us page:

And a quick Google reveals this is a part of Bosco, a Mighty River Power retailer:

That’s backed up by a WhoIs search for the website (Bosco Power again) and leaves us asking the question – why?

• Why is Mighty River Power, arguably the power company with the highest public profile right now after the IPO, using a quasi-hidden brand to sell cheap power?
• Why hide it, but then make it easy to find?
• And why not offer this price deal to all MRP customers?

At least one answer, to me, is “to allow us to create a new business away from the clutter of our legacy systems“, and that’s a very good answer. Another answer could be “to allow us to test a series of new deals and customer selling approaches” which is also valid. and the final answer could be – “we want to shift all of our retailing online over the next few years – and this is the first step.”

But of course the answer is also “Meridian’s Powershop is showing us up – we need to do something”. 

No matter the reason, more price-based competition is something we can all benefit from, but let’s not kid ourselves that this is a new entrant to the retail market.