Frequency Response incentivises you to power down operations for short periods to help balance the grid during critical times. Whether it’s a sudden power station trip or extended demand spikes on cold winter mornings and evenings, your participation makes a difference.
When the grid experiences a short-term disturbance, such as a sudden loss of power generation, your equipment responds quickly in real-time. If it’s power-consuming equipment, it might be called on to use less power. This helps stabilise grid frequency within acceptable limits. If it’s a power-generating asset, such as a battery, it may be called upon by Transpower to produce more power.
There are two Reserve Market programmes to choose from:
If your equipment can shut down or power up within a second, you can choose to participate in Fast Reserves. This involves either turning your equipment off or increasing generation for up to a minute.
If your equipment can shut down in close to one second, you can choose to participate in Sustained Reserves. This involves either turning off your equipment or increasing generation for up to 30 minutes.
By participating in Frequency Response, you can generate revenue while supporting both short-duration (up to one minute) and longer-duration (up to half an hour) grid events, helping to maintain a stable and efficient energy supply when it’s needed most.
We’ll help you select suitable electrical equipment, identify metering and assess the potential revenue you can expect from participating. Once we’ve agreed on the terms of your participation and installed our Simply Flex Hub to signal when to ramp up and down, you’ll be paid to be on standby, ready to reduce your load and respond to events as needed. We generally cover all the upfront costs, including equipment and installation.
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In essence, demand flexibility is the ability to adjust your electricity use. It involves activities such as shifting energy use to lower cost periods, reducing non-critical loads during peak periods, and utilising stored energy, such as batteries, to support the grid by injecting electricity into the network. This approach helps optimise existing infrastructure, minimise costs, and enhance grid stability.
Demand flexibility benefits both business and the electricity system by supporting resilience, affordability, and sustainability. As demand grows and more intermittent renewables, such as wind and solar come online, your flexibility can help balance fluctuations in supply, lower emissions, reduce infrastructure needs, and lower electricity prices.
The grid needs to balance electricity supply and demand in real-time. If a large generator or cable fails unexpectedly, extra power or reduced demand is needed quickly. The market operates to ensure there’s always ‘reserve’ capacity, which can come from flexible power plants increasing their output or electricity loads shutting off quickly when an unplanned grid event occurs.
Many industries, such as cold storage, food processing, manufacturing, data centres, pools, and water treatment facilities, can support demand flexibility.
Suitable equipment includes:
If you have an asset that stores energy or can adjust its operation without disrupting operations, you may be able to use it to help you save costs and stabilise the grid.
Requirements depend on the specific electricity market:
The ‘Fast Reserves’ market requires equipment to respond within 1 second of an unplanned grid event occurring, and equipment must reduce load or increase generation output for 1 minute. Events occur approximately once per year.
The ‘Sustained Reserves’ market requires equipment to respond as close as possible to within 1 second of an unplanned grid event occurring, and equipment must reduce load or increase generation output for up to 30 minutes. Events occur approximately once per year.
Your equipment doesn’t need to run constantly, but the total average consumption of flexible equipment across the site should be at least 200 kW.
Yes, your site can be located anywhere across New Zealand.
No, you can participate in Simply Flex regardless of who supplies your electricity.
