Distributed and Consumer Energy Resources

Distributed and Consumer Energy Resources (DER/CER) play a key role in strengthening our Future Grid. Consumers can facilitate their own energy management by coordinating privately owned resources such as solar, electric vehicles/charge point stations, batteries, and heat pumps. 

 

These smart technologies enable homes and businesses to inject electricity into The Grid and shift excess energy use to off-peak periods. This is an exciting development in the New Zealand electricity sector, contributing to a smarter, more resilient electricity network.

DER

By 2035, Aotearoa could house 3.9 million devices, according to projections in our 2020 Whakamana i te Mauri Hiko paper. This growth presents major opportunities to leverage ‘demand‑side management’ – temporarily reducing electricity demand to manage morning and evening peaks.

The modest cost of establishing DER markets for Aotearoa are likely to realise disproportionate benefits by: 

  • Avoiding unnecessary investment in peaking generation (typically gas-fired)
  • Deferral of transmission and distribution investments
  • Enabling congestion management on electricity networks
  • Encouraging renewable generation through providing demand-side flexibility required to firm intermittent energy (wind and solar)
  • Encouraging consumer investment in renewable solar and battery systems
  • Encouraging electrification by enabling the full demand-side value of assets such as process heaters and batteries (including those in EVs) to be realised
  • Enabling efficient integration of DER/ CER into the electricity system 

The Innovation and Participation Advisory Group (IPAG) carried out an independent review of Transpower’s demand response programme which led to the establishment of our Distributed Energy Resource Management System, FlexPoint™.

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