Resi-Flex project moves into new phase
A partnership between Orion and Wellington Electricity (we*) to explore residential demand-side flexibility has had a huge response to its Expression of Interest (EOI) for partners to co-design and deliver trials.
Resi-Flex, which was awarded Best Paper at the 2023 EEA Conference, aims to incentivise flexibility for residential consumers by exploring commercial mechanisms, in collaboration with flexibility stakeholders. In July, the Commerce Commission announced it had approved funding for Resi-Flex under its innovation project allowance scheme.
The trials build on previous phases, which researched consumer and stakeholder needs and developed a commercial mechanism to signal the value of flexibility.
Residential flexibility is achieved by households adapting their energy consumption in response to various factors, including changes in electricity prices, grid demand, or renewable energy availability.
“We were blown away by the quality and quantity of responses to our EOI request. It made the selection process particularly challenging,” says Orion Head of Market and Customer Innovation Evie Trolove.
“We wanted to test commercial mechanisms with partners that could deliver innovative flexibility offerings to residential consumers and analyse the real-world response.”
“Everyone who responded is making a positive contribution to the development of New Zealand’s future electricity system. I’d like to acknowledge the respondents who weren’t selected but who all put forward strong proposals,” says we* Commercial and Regulatory Manager, Scott Scrimgeour.
The key objective behind the trials is to encourage changes in electricity use and evaluate how effectively these mitigate local network constraints to ensure investment is optimised.
Octopus Energy was the first partner selected by Orion and we*, with a trial set to begin shortly which will leverage Octopus’ Saving Sessions to offer network region-specific savings.
“Demand side flexibility can have a large impact in balancing future energy needs and sustainability targets so we are delighted to be partnering with Orion and WE* on Resi-Flex. Saving Sessions is available for all Octopus customers to opt into. Once opted in, customers receive notifications about upcoming events, and are then rewarded for any reduction in usage (or increase in export if they have solar or batteries). We advise customers on how they can reduce their usage without impacting their day-to-day life. We've had a fantastic uptake of the scheme already, and hope to bring savings to more customers and continue to innovate on it with this partnership,” says Octopus Head of Product (NZ) David Charlton.
Additional Resi-Flex partners will be announced as the project and co-design progresses.