Evnex and FlexViz: Making Smart EV Charging Visible to the Market

For years, New Zealand’s flexibility conversation has focused on what could be possible.

Smart EV chargers, batteries, solar systems and other distributed energy resources all have the potential to help manage peaks, defer network investment and support a more efficient electricity system.

The challenge has never been whether flexibility exists.The challenge has been making it visible.

That is exactly the problem Evnex and Cortexo are working to solve through FlexViz.

A growing source of flexibility hiding in plain sight

Evnex is a Christchurch-based manufacturer of smart EV chargers, with around 15,000 chargers operating across New Zealand and Australia.

As EV adoption grows, those chargers represent more than just a way to fuel vehicles. They represent a growing pool of flexible load that could help support the electricity system.

That is where Evnex sees the opportunity. Smart charging is not only about faster or cheaper charging for the driver. It is also about understanding what those chargers are doing, where flexible load exists, and how that flexibility could be used by the wider electricity system.

As Evnex’s Product Manager, Tom Rose explains, Evnex’s role sits at the intersection of drivers, installers, engineering teams and electricity industry participants who want to understand what chargers are doing and potentially use that load to provide grid services.

The company first worked with Cortexo through FlexTalk, where OpenADR was used to demonstrate control and telemetry across a small group of chargers.

The next step was understanding the bigger picture. Not whether flexibility could work. But how much flexibility was actually available.

From proving flexibility to make it visible

Following FlexTalk, Evnex connected to FlexViz, Cortexo’s platform for making distributed flexibility visible to electricity market participants. Tom notes,

“The next evolution for flexibility at Evnex was FlexViz. We’d proven we could make flexibility visible. The question became, how much capacity is actually out there?”

Evnex connected its wider New Zealand charging fleet to FlexViz. Today, the platform provides visibility of EV charging load across New Zealand, updated in five-minute intervals.

“We’ve now got visibility of all of the load at all of the different GXPs, and it comes on five-minute intervals. So you’ve got really good visibility of basically how much EV charging is going on out there.”

This visibility matters because networks, retailers and system operators cannot use flexibility they cannot see. FlexViz provides a common platform where flexibility suppliers can make their capacity visible and where potential buyers can begin to understand what resources are available.

Why one integration matters

One of the biggest barriers facing flexibility suppliers is fragmentation. There are 29 electricity distribution businesses in New Zealand, along with Transpower, retailers, market operators and emerging flexibility platforms.

Building separate integrations for every organisation is costly, time-consuming and difficult to justify. Tom states, “The problem for us as a small company is we don’t want to have to build 29 integrations.”

Instead, Evnex built a single integration with FlexViz. That connection gives Evnex a pathway to multiple market participants without having to rebuild the same capability again and again.

As Tom puts it, “We just built one. And that makes my life a lot easier.”

For suppliers, this lowers the cost of participation. For networks and flexibility buyers, it lowers the complexity of accessing multiple flexibility sources.

Why aggregation is critical

Visibility alone is not enough. The other challenge is scale.

An individual EV charging fleet may not be large enough to solve a network constraint on its own. The same applies to batteries, solar systems or other distributed energy resources.

However, when multiple sources of flexibility are aggregated together, the picture changes.

Tom explains: “There’s actually some serious volume of flexibility that could be available.”

This is one of the key roles FlexViz plays.

By bringing together EV charging, batteries, solar and other flexibility resources into a single ecosystem, it becomes possible to demonstrate the collective capacity available to the electricity system.

As Terry Paddy discussed in our article on Flexibility 2.0, visibility is one of the critical steps required before flexibility can become a functioning market.

What is the business value for Evnex?

For Evnex, FlexViz is not simply a technology integration. It is a faster pathway into an emerging market. Tom notes:

“FlexViz is a great way of getting to that without having to do lots and lots of small bits of work.”

The commercial model for flexibility is still evolving. Future value could take many forms:

• Payments for providing flexibility services
• Reduced infrastructure costs across the electricity system
• Lower-cost smart charging products
• Retail plans that reward customers for flexible charging
• New flexibility products and services

One example Tom highlighted was the possibility of retailers offering free EV charging in exchange for controlling when charging occurs.

“I could foresee a future where a retailer might choose to say, choose this plan and all your EV charging will be free.”

For the retailer, the benefit is clear. Charging can be shifted into periods when electricity is abundant and cheap. A compelling retail product, such as free or heavily discounted EV charging, could also help attract and retain customers in a competitive market.

For the customer, the potential savings are significant.

Based on an average driver travelling around 12,000km a year, in a petrol vehicle using 8 litres per 100km at a petrol price of around $3.25 per litre, that is about $3,100 a year in fuel costs.

Even if only part of that cost could be offset through smart charging, the consumer value becomes easy to understand. 

The electricity system also benefits because demand becomes easier to manage. The exact commercial model is still emerging, but the foundation starts with visibility.

New Zealand needs to move beyond pilots

Tom was very clear that New Zealand has already proven the technology. Demand flexibility is available, easily connected to, and has real market value.

“I think we’ve been stuck in this sort of swirl of pilots and trials. We’ve demonstrated the technology kind of a million times over.”

The next challenge is commercialisation. According to Tom, the next stage requires several things:

• Standardised signalling and communication protocols
• Greater visibility of available flexibility
• Standardised flexibility products
• Commercial contracting frameworks
• A pathway towards more active flexibility markets

Many of these themes are explored further in our article, Where Is New Zealand on the Demand Flexibility Maturity Scale.

FlexViz directly supports several of these next steps by helping suppliers become visible, reducing integration barriers and creating a common platform that market participants can connect to.

The opportunity ahead

New Zealand already has the technology required to build a more flexible electricity system. The challenge is connecting the pieces.

Networks need confidence that flexibility exists. Suppliers need confidence that buyers will emerge. Consumers need clear value. Retailers need commercial models.

The building blocks are increasingly in place. And when asked what role FlexViz plays in all this, Tom’s answer was simple:

“To pull it all together. And that’s what FlexViz is already doing.”

Tom’s advice to other flexibility suppliers is simple: get involved early. By joining FlexViz, suppliers can make their flexibility visible, reduce integration complexity, and become part of a growing pool of resources that networks, retailers and future flexibility markets can access through a single platform. 

Interested in joining FlexViz?

If you’re a flexibility supplier looking to make your capacity visible to networks, retailers and future flexibility markets, get in touch with Cortexo to learn more about connecting to FlexViz.