INNOVATION IN ENERGY AWARD FINALIST: Simply Energy rewarding businesses for their power flexibility
Simply Energy’s Demand Flex programme uses a sophisticated, in-house technology platform to automatically power down or turn off selected customer equipment when the grid needs a helping hand.
When Simply Energy entered the reserves and demand response markets, New Zealand had no readily available technology options.
It decided to build its own platform – a New Zealand first that enables customers to offer load into multiple electricity markets, manage load onsite and provide network support solutions.
The programme, which began as a pilot in late 2019, now financially rewards over 40 businesses at more than 60 sites for providing demand-side management in response to grid events. For example, when the Huntly power station tripped on 1 March, Simply Energy’s customers automatically reduced electricity demand.
Customers are rewarded by being paid to be on standby or receive a tailored electricity tariff in return for providing flexibility.
Equipment that can be ‘flexed’ joins the programme via a smart hub installed on the customer’s site and connected to a centralised, cloud-based management system.
Benefits
It needs practical, cost effective, and innovative solutions that better utilise existing network capacity, have the smarts to match real-time generation with consumption, and the commercial models required to enable a renewable future.
As well as providing an added revenue stream for customers, the programme is giving customers more control over their electricity use and empowering them to take climate action.
It has enabled Simply Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Contact Energy, to also contract 10 MW of interruptible electricity supply to Lake Parime, which is currently building a data centre alongside the Clyde Dam that will be operational later this year.
Future growth
The key to building the programme is to increase participation. Simply Energy is doing this by growing its customer base and continuing to look for ways to reduce costs. It is also developing opportunities for participation by a wider range of distributed energy resources, such as on-site solar, batteries and electric vehicles.
Its customers currently contribute an average of about 15 megawatts of capacity to the instantaneous reserves market. New customers are coming onboard monthly, and the target is to grow the community of participants to a portfolio size of 100 MW of flexible load by 2025.
Transpower estimates DER will be worth $1 billion annually by 2050. Demand flexibility management of peaks and short-term scarcity will be vital for electricity system security and affordability.
Demand flexibility solutions require high levels of technical and commercial innovation, and Simply Energy says taking bold steps early is delivering the innovation required to solve these sustainability challenges. It has also put the company ahead of the curve and in a great position to enable New Zealand to lower emissions and meet its climate goals.
The Innovation in Energy Award category is sponsored by Ara Ake.
Get your tickets to attend the Awards ceremony here.