It pays to be flexible with your energy use.
Demand Flexibility gives you greater control over when selected equipment at your site uses electricity, by automatically switching it off when the grid needs extra support.
How you’ll benefit
- Earn money for switching off selected electrical equipment at times of high electricity demand and for being on standby to reduce electrical load quickly if there’s an unplanned major grid event.
- Reduce your costs from getting paid to shift your energy use.
- Make a meaningful contribution to New Zealand’s energy transition.
What our customers are saying
Our customers share how participating in Demand Flexibility is helping them become more sustainable, stay at the forefront of their industries and earn money.
Crasborn.
Crasborn share how Demand Flexibility is helping it keep the fruit chilled and the country powered.
Mancold
Find out how the financial rewards of joining the Demand Flex programme have exceeded Mancold’s expectations.
Farmland.
Farmland Foods has a long history of using innovative technology, and tell us how Demand Flexibility is helping it stay at the forefront of their industry.
Case study - Moana
New Zealand’s largest Māori-owned fisheries company, Moana explains how Demand Flexibility is helping it create a more sustainable New Zealand.
How it works.
Your electrical equipment
We install our Demand Flexibility hub on your site to connect to your electrical
equipment.
Our software
Our cloud-based Demand Flexibility software integrates with the hub and electricity markets.
New Zealand’s electricity markets
In real-time our automated platform manages your equipment to participate in multiple electricity markets.
Getting set up is easy
- We’ll help you identify if Demand Flexibility is right for you and select electrical equipment to participate, ensuring there’s no disruption to your core business.
- We’ll also agree the terms of your participation and work out how much you could earn.
- Then, we’ll install hardware on your site to send event signals to your control systems and test it’s all working as expected.
- Once you’re up and running, we’ll pay you for being on standby to reduce your load, and for responding to events.
Register your interest
More information
- Equipment can include load, generation or energy storage equipment.
- It must be able to be automatically controlled.
- Where temporary interruption of power supply to selected equipment is not business critical, eg a freezer that can be turned off for short periods of time.
- Equipment can have a variable operating profile and does not need to be available 24/7.
- Participating equipment should have an average demand or generation output capacity of at least 100kW across the site.
- Examples include refrigeration compressors, fans and pumps, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, timber drying kilns, furnaces, swimming pools, water and wastewater pumps, manufacturing equipment and loads backed up by uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and gensets.
Your existing control systems continue to have sole control of your equipment. We install our Demand Flexibility hub at your site which provides event signals to your control system.
The electricity grid relies on scheduling supply to match demand in real-time. If a large generator or electricity cable has an unplanned outage, either additional power supply or a reduction in electrical demand is needed very quickly. A market operates to ensure sufficient ‘reserve’ capacity is available at all times. Reserve capacity can be provided, for example, by coal and gas power stations quickly increasing their output, or electricity loads switching off as soon as the unplanned grid event occurs.
The electricity grid is under most pressure when electricity demand is high. This often occurs on the coldest winter evenings, or when electricity supply is low, for example when the output from wind farms is low. At these times coal and gas power stations often increase their supply. Flexible electricity loads can be used to help reduce demand, and in turn reduce the grid’s reliance on coal and gas power stations.
Requirements depend on the specific electricity market:
The ‘fast reserves’ market requires equipment to respond within 1 second of an unplanned grid event occurring, and equipment must reduce load or increase generation output for 1 minute. Events occur approximately once per year.
The ‘slow reserves’ market requires equipment to respond as close as possible to within 1 second of an unplanned grid event occurring, and equipment must reduce load or increase generation output for up to 30 minutes. Events occur approximately once per year.
‘Demand response’ markets involve scheduling equipment in advance to reduce load in response to longer duration events, for example between 5pm and 7pm on a cold winter evening. Events may range in duration from 1 to 4 hours and occur approximately 5-20 times per year.
At this stage, participating sites can be located anywhere in the North Island.
No, you can participate in Demand Flexibility regardless of who supplies your electricity.