Electricity Authority welcomes plan for boosting consumer-supplied flexibility

The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko (Authority) welcomes the plan released by FlexForum today, outlining actions that make it easier for consumers to actively participate in the electricity system.

‘Flexibility Plan 2.0’ identifies 41 actions for the Authority and others to collectively build a ‘smart, flexible consumer-centric power system’.

“Flexibility is already an important feature of the electricity system – making it more reliable, more resilient and keeping costs down,” Electricity Authority Chief Executive Sarah Gillies says.

“It’s a low-cost way to ensure New Zealand’s electricity supply is always able to meet our very changeable demand. Flexibility will become increasingly important as the economy electrifies, and more electricity is generated from weather-dependent sources such as wind and solar.”

Individuals and communities providing flexibility also benefit through lower costs and greater energy resilience, whether it’s a business shifting its boiler use away from peak demand periods, households using smart tools and AI to use power differently, or community generation schemes supporting those in need.

“We agree with FlexForum that consumers are key to increasing flexibility in the electricity system and more needs to be done to unlock this potential.

“Many of FlexForum’s actions align closely with work already underway at the Authority. In several areas, our current work directly supports these actions, while in others, it contributes meaningfully toward achieving the overarching goals outlined by FlexForum.

“We’ll closely review FlexForum’s plan to identify where the Authority can further enhance and support these initiatives, and explore opportunities to take them even further,” Gillies said.

Electricity Authority projects supporting ‘Flexibility Plan 2.0’ include:

• rule changes to improving visibility of capacity and constraints on networks at all levels (FlexForum actions 3 and 30) – consultation on proposed rule changes is scheduled for mid-2025
• moving towards real-time access to data so consumers’, or their agents, can access their electricity information in real time (FlexForum actions 2 and 9). This work includes supporting a potential electricity consumer data right and consulting on proposals changes to improve the transfer of electricity information - scheduled for July.
• enabling rule changes that will allow consumers to have more than one retailer for different services at their property – consultation on proposed rule changes is scheduled for late May (action 17).
• making it faster and easier for distributed generation to connect to the network (action 22) through the Network Connections Project.
• supporting industry trials through the Power Innovation Pathway to help identify and remove regulatory barriers (actions 33 and 34), as well as to better understand and then develop requirements for flexibility service providers to interact with the market (actions 23, 24 and 38).

The Authority also has work underway to support consumers to actively contribute to a more flexible system.

• Our decentralisation green paper seeks feedback on what a more decentralised electricity system might look like, how this might benefit consumers, and what might be needed to gain these benefits. A decentralised system relies more heavily on consumers and communities providing localised renewable generation, storage and flexible demand. Feedback will help the Authority to determine the regulatory framework required to support consumer benefit in a more decentralised electricity system.
  
• We will soon seek early feedback on the challenges and opportunities of delivering a digitalised electricity system. A digitalised system will enable consumers to more easily provide flexibility by managing their electricity use and supply from their own energy generation and storage, like rooftop solar and batteries. This is the first step in developing a roadmap to help drive greater digitalisation across all aspects of the electricity system.