We’re excited to be growing our Demand Flex programme to give customers more ways to participate, and more benefits, including expanding our Demand Response options and introducing local site flexibility (known as Demand Management). If you’re wondering what demand flexibility is, why it’s important and how you can participate, head over here first.

Additional Demand Response opportunities

As well as enabling customers to participate in Demand Response we’ll be developing our Demand Flex platform to enable additional parties such as local networks to benefit from the ‘virtual power plant’ created by the portfolio of flexible load from our customers.

It will give us the ability to ramp down customers’ loads at times of local network constraints – reducing the amount of energy that would otherwise come from firing up New Zealand’s fossil-fuel generating power plants and reducing the amount of investment needed into new local network infrastructure like substations and power lines.

Local Site Demand Management

We’re also working with a few pilot customers to enable them to manage their load at a local site level. Unlike Demand Response, where we pay customers for reducing load to support the broader grid, participating in Demand Management is designed to help customers lower network and energy charges on their electricity bill, along with the emissions from the electricity they use.

It involves moving electricity consumption from times when it’s typically more expensive, and carbon-intensive (e.g., during the morning and evening peaks) to times when it’s cheaper, and  when there’s more renewable energy in the system.

Additionally, with the provision of real-time market pricing and electricity emissions data on the near horizon, being able to shift or reduce demand in response to the emissions impact of electricity generation will soon be possible.

Sound interesting?

If you’d like to learn more, feel free to give me a call on 027 206 4676. You can also hear what our customers are saying here and read more about demand flexibility and its benefits here.