Standardised Demand Flexibility Product Co-design Group appointed

The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko (Authority) is pleased to announce it has appointed members to its new Standardised Flexibility Products Co-design Group. These members bring a wide range of sector knowledge and experience and are as follows:

• Alister Alford, Enel X Senior Manager, Market Development and Regulatory Affairs
• Antony Oosten, Fonterra Energy and Climate Manager
• Daniel Crawford, Electric Kiwi General Manager Wholesale
• Mike Hall, Simply Energy Senior Commercial Manager
• Mitchell Davis, Orion Group Flexibility and Markets Development Lead
• Paul Morrison, Meridian Financial Product Owner
• Stephen Peterson, Utility Data Services Ltd Director

We have also appointed Murray Nash as the independent Chair of the Co-Design group.

Murray is Managing Director of Zusammen, an advisory firm specialising in the interface between public and private sectors. He has extensive experience in financial risk modelling and has previously facilitated two industry working groups for the Authority.

The group will work with us to develop a demand flexibility product by the end of June 2026. Any product implementation would start later in 2026.

The group's work will be reviewed by a subgroup of the Electricity Authority Advisory Group.

We recognise that demand flexibility could help the electricity system manage high or volatile electricity prices. In January 2025 the Standardised Flexibility Product Co-design Group recommended the development of a demand flexibility product to provide additional ways for financially managing peak periods, alongside other forms of hedging.

The purpose of the Co-design Group

We are proposing to develop a demand flexibility product that addresses barriers for prospective buyers and sellers of demand flexibility. It aims to spark innovation and make it easier to offer and access demand flexibility services.

Increasing the use of demand flexibility supports both strategic outcomes in the Authority’s refreshed strategy to ensure consumers have access to affordable electricity, and to promote the security and resilience of our electricity system.

While this initiative was proposed as part of our wider work to better reward industrial demand flexibility, this group is intended to have a broader focus across all forms of demand flexibility that could be used in the wholesale electricity market, such as aggregations of residential consumers or commercial consumers.

Learn more about the group