Two BESS consultations open and five minute settlement discussion paper released

The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko (Authority) is seeking feedback on two consultation papers to support the growing role of battery energy storage systems (BESSs) in New Zealand’s power system.

We have also released a discussion paper on the costs and benefits of moving to a five-minute settlement period. We considered whether this would better align settlement with the capabilities of fast‑responding technologies such as BESSs. The Authority’s current view is that market conditions do not support a transition to five‑minute settlement at this stage.

BESS consultations

As variable and intermittent generation continues to increase, BESS and BESS-hybrids (BESS co-located and operated together with generation plants) will play an important role in balancing variable solar and wind generation output.

Our proposed changes aim to improve how these technologies operate in our power system to help ensure a secure, resilient, and affordable electricity system for consumers.

We have released two consultation papers covering two aspects of our BESS and BESS-hybrid work programme:

• wholesale market arrangements for BESSs
• common quality and wholesale market arrangements for BESSs and BESS-hybrid stations.

Wholesale market arrangements for BESSs

We are proposing Code amendments to improve wholesale market arrangements for utility-scale BESSs. The existing bid and offer requirements and the tools used to schedule and dispatch market participants’ offers and bids currently limit the flexibility that BESSs can offer the market and may also result in inconsistent market dispatch.

The proposed Code amendments have been informed by feedback on our issues and options paper published in November 2025.

Common quality and wholesale market arrangements for BESSs and BESS-hybrid stations

We have presented issues and options in this paper related to:

• Part 8 common quality requirements for BESS-hybrid stations and idle BESSs
• Part 8 common quality requirements for voltage support obligations for transmission-connected generation, including potential to move the point of compliance to the network connection point
• Part 13 trading arrangements for BESS-hybrid stations

Based on feedback on these issues and options, we plan to consult on any Code amendments later in 2026.

Papers released as a single package

We are releasing these papers as a package to give submitters the opportunity to consider the projects of BESS, BESS-hybrids and five-minute settlement together.

The two BESS consultations build on feedback received on our Wholesale market arrangements for battery energy storage systems consultation, our regulatory roadmap for BESS, and discussions with participants. The Common Quality Technical Group has also contributed to the issues and options paper.

To support the BESS consultation papers, we have also published an Eye on Electricity looking at grid-scale battery performance in the New Zealand electricity market. It delves into the data behind how grid-scale BESSs are being utilised.

We welcome your feedback on the BESS consultations by 5pm, 30 June 2026.

We are considering holding a webinar for the BESS consultations and are seeking expressions of interest. If this would be useful for you, please let us know by 5pm, 29 May 2026 and include any topics you would like covered.

Separately, during this consultation period, we will be available to hold individual briefings with interested stakeholders. If you are interested, please let us know by 5pm, 23 June 2026.

To express your interest in either or both options you can contact us at OperationsConsult@ea.govt.nz with “BESS EOI” in the subject line.

While the five-minute discussion paper is not a formal consultation we are inviting feedback on it. Any feedback can be sent to OperationsConsult@ea.govt.nz with “Five-Minute settlement” in the subject line by 5pm, 30 June 2026.

View consultations:

Wholesale market arrangements for battery energy storage systems: Code amendment consultation

Common quality and wholesale market arrangements for BESS and BESS-hybrids