A Simple Shift – Flex at the right time

Demand flexibility, often shortened to ‘flex’, means using electricity at different times of the day to reduce pressure on the network during peak periods, eg heating your home earlier in the afternoon instead of when you get home, or charging a battery when demand is low and using it later.

Ōmokoroa is one of the fastest-growing areas on Powerco’s network, with increasing demand for electricity especially during winter evenings. This makes it an ideal place to test whether flexible energy use can help manage peak demand and delay the need for major infrastructure upgrades.

This trial is exploring smarter ways to use electricity by shifting when it’s used, rather than always increasing network capacity by building infrastructure. By testing technologies in real homes, we want to understand how households can help reduce peak demand while staying comfortable and potentially saving on energy costs.

Yes. In New Zealand, hot water control has long served as a technology that enables shifting demand from peak. This trial aims to test a more dynamic system of flexibility beyond ‘top-down’ measures such as hot water control by lines companies or retailers. In the United States and the United Kingdom, a range of technologies are now being used, but it is still early days for flex and smart devices, such as heat pumps and batteries. We want to understand how these new technologies and approaches can work most effectively in a New Zealand setting. 

The flex technology has got to the point where we think it is ready to be used at scale. There is a lot of learning to be done by lines companies, such as Powerco, electricity retailers, flexibility service providers, installers and our customers.

Powerco needs to understand how the technology can be managed as part of its overall network operations, processes and systems. The aim of this trial is to work through all the practical details of how to deploy and manage new technology in the power system for everyone’s benefit. 

What we are testing is how to get the technology and the management of the electricity network working together in a coordinated way, as well as understanding how flex technology can unlock further benefits for our customers. 

The trial focuses on everyday home technologies that help shift electricity use away from busy winter evening peak times. These include heat pumps, hot water systems, home batteries, home energy management systems and some smart EV charging technology. 

You don’t need to already have this technology installed. You can take part if you already have eligible smart technology or if you’re open to installing it as part of the trial. To view the current list of approved systems and technology eligible for participation in the trial, go to trial compliant devices.

Home batteries can store energy when demand is low, such as in the afternoon and can be used later during evening peak times. This helps reduce pressure on the electricity network while still giving households the energy they need. 

Some participants in the trial will use smart controls to pre‑heat their homes during winter afternoons so they’re warm when they arrive home. This helps reduce the need to turn everything on at once during peak times without changing daily routines. The process happens automatically in the background. 

Smart hot water systems can shift when water is heated without affecting shower comfort. EV charging can also be timed to happen outside of peak periods, and future two way vehicle‑to‑grid (V2G) technology may allow EV batteries to support the network during times of high demand. 

Once the systems are installed, set up and the household is enrolled, participation is intended to be simple and low effort. The technology is designed to operate automatically in the background, responding to signals during peak periods without requiring day-to-day involvement from customers. 

As this is a trial, part of the learning is understanding how well this automation works in real homes and where improvements are needed. Participants will occasionally be asked to share feedback or support troubleshooting if issues arise. Overall, the aim is that daily routines remain largely unchanged while the trial helps test and refine how flex technologies perform in practice. 

The Ōmokoroa demand flexibility trial is focused on residential households. Other EECA flex pilots are running in parallel with the Ōmokoroa trial and focus on commercial and industrial sectors.

An important part of this demonstration is learning how flex technologies perform in real homes. To do this, we need access to data that shows how batteries, HEMS, heat pumps and hot water systems are operating, and how they respond during peak periods. This information helps Powerco understand what works well, what needs improving, and how flex can be used to keep future power costs down for everyone. 

Because these smart systems rely on connectivity to operate and share data, participating households need to have a reliable wifi connection. It’s important that devices remain connected throughout the trial so they can respond as intended and provide the insights needed for learning. If a home’s router or wifi password changes, the device settings will need to be updated, just like other connected devices in the household. 

Protecting participants’ privacy is an important part of this trial. By enrolling in this trial, a participant will need to consent to Powerco, EECA and research partners using their data and energy consumption profiles for the purpose of this trial, in accordance with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. The data collected from participating homes will be anonymised, before it is disclosed by Powerco to any third party, meaning it cannot be traced back to an individual household. 

The data gathered from participating households will remain valuable for analysis and learning, even if a household chooses to exit the trial before its completion or after the trial has ended. This continued use of data enables Powerco, EECA and their research partners to further understand how flexible energy systems perform and where improvements can be made. However, once the trial concludes, collecting new data from households will stop. 

The Ōmokoroa trial is scheduled to run for approximately three years, with the aim of having completed a small number of household installations and enrolments during the winter months of 2026. Progressively, we aim to grow the group of trial participants to full capacity for the winters of 2027 and 2028.

Once the Ōmokoroa trial concludes, households can keep installed equipment such as batteries or HEMS, enabling continued benefits and independent use after the trial ends. Households may still benefit from any available network assistance rates (NARs).

In agreeing to be a participant you have, in principle, signed up for the duration of the trial, receiving incentives that could have otherwise gone to another household. We appreciate, however, that there may be a genuine reason for a participant to change their minds. It’s important to know that if you change your mind for any reason before 30 September 2027, you will be required to reimburse us the full cost of your incentive. 

A commitment of signing up for the trial is to fill out an exit survey so we can understand the reasons for you leaving. While we would be sad to see you go, if there’s a legitimate reason and you have filled out the exit survey, we have the discretion to waive the obligation to pay back the incentive.

We would encourage the new homeowner to continue to participate in the trial and would appreciate it if you could let us know when you have sold your house and plan to move out. We can take it from there, approaching the new owner and explaining that there’s still benefits to be had if they sign up for the trial. 

The incentives come from EECA and will be administered by Powerco and its debit card service provider. The incentive can be redeemed on the payment of the final invoice of an A Simple Shift-endorsed installer. The debit card with the correct amount will be issued together with the final invoice from the installer. This will happen immediately after the system has been inspected and is switched on (ie, proven to be working). 

This depends on the electricity retailer or flex service provider you’re signed up with. Powerco issues a network assistance rate (NAR) to a select group of retailers and providers that participate in this trial. They can choose to package the NAR pricing in different ways. It could be a rebate based on the amount of energy you managed to shift away from peak hours. Retailers/providers could also choose to reward you in other ways (ie, one lump sum, a sign-up bonus or gift, or combine it in a bundled service package). While you are required to sign up with a participating retailer/provider to participate in the trial, you can choose which one is best for you.

The peak electricity use hours in Ōmokoroa that require trial participants’ assistance, are during June, July, August and September, between the hours of 5pm and 8pm. This is when we need a joint effort from trial participants to shift their power use and help flatten the peak. The good thing about the smart technology in your home is that you won’t need to do anything. The shifting of energy will happen automatically and in unison with other trial participants. 

Depending on how your home is setup, you may benefit from: 

• Lower electricity costs 

• Incentives to install new technology 

• Rewards for shifting your energy use 

• More insight into how your home uses energy