Flexibility Plan 1.0 is a starting point for coordinated and collaborative action to unlock the value of distributed energy resources (DER) and flexibility for households, businesses, communities, the power system and Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Plan is a living checklist which deliberately identifies what needs to be done from the perspectives of households, businesses and communities and the electricity ecosystem. The purpose is to provide a framework for leading the transition required by the whole electricity system, including consumers with and without DER, to maximise the value of flexible resources.
The Plan is not perfect. It is a starting point. The steps will be updated, added to and ticked off as we do and learn.
Delivering the entire Plan will take many years and requires support and resources from across the electricity ecosystem.
We assessed progress using the insights and experience of FlexForum Members and assistance of 13 experts from within the membership.
Progress was gauged based on the extent to which a household, business or community has or will experience a practical and tangible difference across their flexibility journey.
From that perspective, progress is being made, but more needs to be done, and faster, to make the end-to-end flexibility journey easy and obvious.
To date, the balance of ‘flexibility progress’ is focusing on ‘how do we make flexibility work inside the electricity system?’ and ‘how do we make it usable for market participants’. This is valuable work. But much less progress is being made at the human end by answering ‘how do people easily evaluate their options?’, ‘how can people be routinely rewarded for making their flexibility available?’, and ‘how can the choices be made easier?’.
We need to progress both fronts. If the mission of the FlexForum is to make it easy for people to get value from their flexibility, we need to start by asking ‘what’s making it hard?’
