We’re seeking expressions of interest from retailers (or aggregators), large-scale customers, generators or other parties for cost-effective flex solutions for our electricity network.
Delivering a more cost-effective network through flex
Traditionally, our network has been built to supply peak demand – short durations during the day or year when customer demand for electricity is at its highest (such as 6-10pm on winter evenings when many people are using electricity to light and heat their homes).
Building our network to meet these short, intermittent peak demand periods means much of the available capacity goes unused most of the time, which is not efficient or cost-effective.
We’re looking for other ways to meet peak demand through what is known as ‘flex’.
Flex solutions enable us to change when electricity is used. It avoids adding to peak demand, and it makes more use of existing network capacity during off-peak times.
By using flex solutions we can defer or even avoid building more capacity on our network. That reduces cost for our customers. Through flex we can also empower our customers to be part of the solution.
Flex solutions can be things like:
- Encouraging industrial or commercial customers to change when they use electricity to off-peak times.
- Reducing load during peak demand by requesting large-scale customers to turn things off.
- Reducing load by switching off smaller-scale controllable load across a wider range of customers (such as electric hot water cylinders for residential customers).
- Using stored energy such as batteries to offset load during peak demand, or even support peak demand by injecting electricity into the network.
Because we know when peak demand will be, it can be agreed in advance when flex solutions are deployed. There’s also potential to use it more dynamically – to reduce load during an outage for example.
[graphic of peak load here – Mark or Line to design]
Expressions of interest sought for flex solutions
We have identified nine proposed network upgrade projects that we may be able to defer by implementing flex solutions instead.
We’re seeking expressions of interest from parties such as retailers (or aggregators) and large-scale customers who may be able to provide flex solutions.
Add in here WIIFM ie. what do customers get in return for turning things off etc?
What we’re looking for (and what we’re not)
- We need solutions that provide enough flex to defer our network investment.
- We’re open to implementing more than one solution, or for parties to collaborate on a combination of solutions.
- We’re not looking for solutions that use fossil fuels, such as diesel generators.
- We’re not looking for a direct mass market solution, but we’re open to controllable load solutions provided by a retailer (or aggregator).
- We’re not looking to purchase solutions to own and use on our network such as Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS).
Current opportunities
Expressions of interest are now open for flex solutions at our Mt Maunganui GXP. Other opportunities will follow in 2025.
[map goes here OR project card]
About our electricity network
We’re here to connect communities.
We’re Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest dual energy distributor by network length, connecting over 900,000 Kiwis across the North Island to safe, reliable and resilient electricity and gas.
We deliver electricity to approximately 736,500 customers through 29,200km of electricity network.
Our electricity network covers Coromandel to South Waikato, Tauranga and Mt Maunganui, Taranaki, Whanganui, Rangitīkei, Manawatū and Wairarapa.