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System security and resilience

Managing peak electricity demand

How to better manage risks to electricity supply during peak demand periods.

  • Generation

    • Overview

    The Electricity Authority is continuing work to support the electricity system to better coordinate resources during peak demand periods.

    On 18 July 2024, we decided to develop six initiatives to support security of supply. Since then we have:

    Accelerated demand response participation:

    Changed market settings for security of supply:

    Started development of an integrated standby ancillary service in the form of a five-minute variability management tool:

    • We plan to start this work by the end of 2025. The first stage is a technical review of the performance of the existing multiple frequency keeper service.

    Promoted flexibility and competition:

    • Our BESS roadmap sets out our work to support investment in BESS.
    • We will be consulting on new market arrangements for BESS before the end of 2025.
    • Our work on a new five-minute variability management tool will also investigate opening up this service to BESS.
    • The Authority has recently appointed a Flexibility Lead.

    Enhanced forward price discovery in flexibility markets:

    Enhanced outage information and coordination:

    Timeline

    Past activity

    Project background

    The Electricity Authority is dedicated to making market improvements to enhance the reliability of New Zealand’s electricity system.

    Since mid-2021 there has been an increase in the number of trading periods where the available electricity supply is tight, relative to the expected demand and normal reserve requirements. A key reason for this is the increased role of intermittent generation and the growing cost of gas, coal and carbon emissions. This project looks at how to better manage residual supply risk and solutions for responding to large, unexpected changes in wholesale electricity capacity requirements.

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