Empowering consumers through measures to enable demand side flexibility

This is the Authority’s latest quarterly update on how we are implementing the recommendations in the Market Development Advisory Group’s (MDAG) final report. It covers July to September 2025.

Overall progress

The Authority has now implemented 13 of the 31 recommendations (up from nine last quarter). You can see our progress on all of the recommendations in our quarterly report.

This article highlights the Authority’s activity on better market tools and information over the past quarter.

The four most recently completed recommendations are:

• Improving the accuracy of wind and solar forecasts: On 31 July 2025, the Authority introduced a new arrangement that is expected to improve the accuracy of intermittent generation forecasting and thereby reduce security of supply risks and costs for consumers. The Authority is monitoring the effectiveness of the new arrangement, and generators’ compliance with the new requirements. (Recommendation 1)

• Increasing transparency of the over-the-counter contract market: We have introduced a requirement for participants to provide information to the Authority on requests and responses for over-the-counter (OTC) hedge contracts. This will increase the transparency of competition in the OTC market, with the first data submissions due 14 October 2025. (Recommendation 9)

• Lifting consumer awareness of Demand Side Flexibility (DSF): During the last quarter we ran a campaign highlighting the benefits of time-varying pricing plans. We also recently made a rule change that requires large retailers to offer pricing plans that give consumers cheaper rates for off-peak electricity no later than 1 October 2026. These plans can deliver cost savings to those willing and able to shift their power use away from peak times. We are now treating this recommendation as complete, though we expect our work in this area will be ongoing. (Recommendation 20)

• Engaging with international experts: Many of the challenges faced by New Zealand are shared by other countries. We continue to engage with international experts and have welcomed several delegations and international experts this year , as well as continuing engagements with our equivalents in the Australian electricity system. As with recommendation 20, above, we are now treating this recommendation as complete, though we expect our engagement with experts to be ongoing. (Recommendation 23)

The last quarter, July to September 2025

Our work on MDAG’s recommendations since July 2025 has had three areas of focus:

1. Helping consumers understand their electricity use and make better retail plan choices

• We have also been working to simplify bills and improve transparency so that consumers are better able to understand their electricity bill. And we are continuing our work to develop a new energy comparison and switching service.

1. Strengthening requirements on retailers to offer consumers more competitive services and tariffs

• We are enhancing our retail data monitoring. This will enable the Authority to monitor the uptake of distributed energy options, like rooftop solar, and demand-side flexibility (DSF) activity more accurately. Our first data collection from retailers was completed on 31 August 2025. Find out more information about this new initiative. (Recommendation 3)

• We’re consulting on a proposal to require half-hourly metered electricity data to be submitted into the reconciliation process. This will strengthen price signals and incentivise retailers and traders to offer DSF rewarding tariffs. It will also make better use of the significant investments that have already been made in meters that record consumption every half hour. This consultation opened on 10 October 2025. (Recommendation 18)

1. Changes to modernise the electricity system

• Enabling new technologies, like rooftop solar and home batteries, requires changes to the grid, including to enable bidirectional power flows. Our review of Part 8 of the Code under the Future Security and Resilience programme is focused on lowering the risk of power supply interruptions or electrical equipment not operating properly or being damaged. We published a high-level options paper in June 2025 and are currently considering submitter feedback and next steps. Our review of Part 6 of the Code will enable the power system to better integrate these new technologies at the distribution level. (Recommendation 11)

MDAG’s recommendations form an important part of the Authority’s work programme. We will continue to report on our progress through these quarterly updates.

About the Market Development Advisory Group's work