Objectives
Efficient demand flexibility supports businesses to demonstrate new battery energy storage that make their energy use more flexible, resilient and affordable.
Eligibility
- All New Zealand-based and New Zealand-registered legal entities, including State-owned enterprises, local councils and regional councils.
- Public service departments, non-public service departments (such as the New Zealand Defence Force), Statutory Crown entities, Solar farms and EDBs are NOT eligible.
What the funding covered
Applicants were able to for up to 40% of eligible project costs, capped at $5 million. This includes co-funding feasibility studies or business cases to develop projects up until the final investment decision, and co-funding the project’s implementation.
Funding can support costs associated with:
- purchasing and installing flexibility equipment
- engineering design and integration
- commissioning and testing.
Projects must demonstrate how they will deliver system benefits and useful data for New Zealand’s energy sector.
What kind of project was this for?
Projects may include technologies such as:
- battery energy storage systems
Projects should enable participation in services such as:
- electricity reserves markets
- energy arbitrage
- capacity or network services.
Projects must be deployed at a commercial or industrial site in New Zealand.
Note: A recent RFP targeted aggregators of demand flexibility services. That RFP has completed.
Why we offered this
Demand flexibility is an emerging area of innovation internationally. Energy storage and flexible load technologies are being deployed across Europe and Asia to improve grid reliability and reduce system costs.
New Zealand has an opportunity to demonstrate how these technologies can support a highly renewable electricity system.
Through this initiative, EECA aims to:
- catalyse investment in flexibility technologies
- demonstrate new business models for energy storage
- generate data and insights for New Zealand’s electricity sector.
Application process
Applications have now closed, and the successful applicants will be announced in the coming months.
For reference, you can download the RFP document here: Efficient Demand Flexibility RFP [PDF 527 KB]