Flexibility Is Moving From Discussion to Delivery

The Electricity Authority’s latest flexibility workshop summary is a useful signal for New Zealand’s electricity sector.

The direction is clear. Flexibility is no longer being discussed as a distant idea. The sector is now asking more practical questions: how do we make flexibility visible, easier to access, more consistent and trusted enough to use?

Cortexo welcomes that direction. It clarifies the work now needed across the industry: not just proving flexibility exists, but creating the conditions for it to be used at scale.

As the Authority’s summary puts it: “A key barrier is not the absence of value, but the lack of visibility, consistency and forward-looking signals.”

That is the heart of the issue.

Flexibility already exists across New Zealand’s electricity system. It can be found in industrial load, hot water control, batteries, solar, EV charging, smart devices and other distributed energy resources. But flexibility cannot become a normal part of system and network planning if the market cannot see where it is, what it can do and how it could be used.

Visibility is the first practical step

The Authority’s summary makes two important points. The value of flexibility is often not visible. The flexibility resource itself is often not visible either.

That matters because flexibility is location- and time-dependent. A flexible load may be highly valuable in one part of the network and less useful somewhere else. It may be valuable during a local constraint, a planned outage, a short evening peak, or a wider system event.

If networks, retailers, aggregators and system operators cannot see where flexibility exists, how much is available and when it can respond, it remains difficult to plan around it or invest with confidence.

This is the gap Flexviz is designed to help address. It gives flexibility suppliers a way to make available resources visible, and gives potential buyers a clearer view of what flexibility already exists across the system.

Flexviz does not solve every commercial, regulatory or market design question. Nor should it be presented that way. But it does support one of the practical foundations the sector is now clearly asking for: better visibility of flexible resources.

Standardisation will make participation easier

The Authority’s summary also highlights the need for greater standardisation.

That includes flexibility products, contracts, participation models, procurement processes and performance expectations. This is not just an administrative detail. It is what makes markets easier to enter, compare and scale.

At the moment, too much of the flexibility market risks becoming bespoke. Different buyers may want different data, different processes, different contracts and different technical requirements. That creates friction for flexibility suppliers, especially smaller providers and aggregators who cannot justify building a custom process for every possible buyer.

This is a familiar challenge in emerging markets.

As Terry Paddy wrote in Cortexo’s earlier article, An organised flexibility market requires organisation: “A flexibility services market will not emerge fully formed and perfect one morning.”

That article argued that organised flexibility markets need clear product specifications, consistent terms of trade, pricing that reflects value, and a commitment to learn by doing.

The Authority’s workshop summary suggests the sector is moving in a similar direction. That is encouraging.

Standardisation does not mean every flexibility use case should look the same. Different situations will need different levels of certainty, control and commercial structure. But common language, common expectations and common processes will make it easier for more parties to participate.

Interoperability is where the market becomes practical

The workshop summary also points to the importance of data access and interoperability.

This is where the flexibility conversation becomes very practical.

If flexibility is going to work across networks, retailers, aggregators, flexibility service providers and system operators, then different systems need to communicate with each other. Devices, platforms and market participants need a way to exchange signals, data and responses without every connection becoming a one-off project.

Evnex’s connection to Flexviz is a useful example.

In the Evnex and Flexviz case study, Product Manager Tom Rose described the challenge facing smaller flexibility suppliers: “The problem for us as a small company is we don’t want to have to build 29 integrations.”

Instead, Evnex built one integration with Flexviz. “We just built one. And that makes my life a lot easier.”

That is the point of interoperability. It lowers the cost and complexity of participation. Flexibility suppliers do not need to rebuild the same capability again and again. Buyers can access a wider pool of resources through a more common pathway.

Interoperability should not be treated as a backend technical issue. It is a market access issue.

When systems can connect through common standards and clear protocols, the sector can spend less time joining systems together and more time learning how flexibility performs in practice.

Confidence will build through use

Another useful point in the Authority’s summary is that confidence in flexibility will build over time.

The electricity system already works with uncertainty. Forecasts, demand patterns and generation conditions are never perfect. The question is not whether every individual flexible resource can behave with perfect certainty. The question is whether the system can develop enough visibility, data, standards and experience to use flexibility in the right way for the right use case.

Some use cases may only need price-responsive flexibility. Others may require contracts, availability payments, performance verification or stronger operational control. The right model will depend on the network’s needs, the level of risk and the value at stake.

This is why testing matters.

Cortexo’s recent controlled test with Evnex showed how emergency load shedding could work in practice. The event was simulated, but the signal pathway was real: from a Transpower connection point, through Flexviz, to Evnex as a connected flexibility provider.

Evnex then temporarily reduced charging load across participating chargers before normal charging resumed.

Tests like this help build the track record the sector needs. They show how systems connect, how signals move, how flexibility responds, and what needs to be refined before these capabilities are used in live operating conditions.

Confidence does not arrive before the market begins. It develops as the sector builds practical experience.

That requires trials, demonstrations, shared results and real-world deployment. It also requires visibility of performance, so buyers can understand what worked, what did not, and how future arrangements should be improved.

Flexibility should not remain a theoretical option considered late in the planning process. It needs to become visible enough, tested enough and standardised enough to be considered alongside traditional investment.

Flexibility needs to be easy for consumers, too

The Authority’s summary also notes that consumers do not necessarily need to understand the full concept of flexibility. That is right.

Most households and businesses do not need to think in terms of system services, network constraints or distributed energy orchestration. They need simple propositions that make sense. Lower costs. Better use of their assets. Less waste. Better resilience. A way to contribute to a more efficient electricity system without giving up control in ways they do not understand or accept.

This theme also came through clearly in Cortexo’s recent discussion with Flex-Able.

Flex-Able General Manager Josh Benjamin noted that technology is not the main barrier. The bigger issue is whether consumers and businesses can see a clear reason to participate:

“Getting the price signals to the consumer or the businesses that wish to participate is the key because it’s what drives behavioural change.”

That links directly to the Authority’s point about clearer value propositions and better participation pathways. If flexibility is going to scale, the offer needs to be simple. The value needs to be clear. The reward needs to be meaningful.

As Josh put it: “It shouldn’t be that hard; it shouldn’t be complex, and we should get a good deal.”

That is a useful test for the market. If participation is too hard to explain, too hard to access, or too hard to reward, then flexibility will remain limited to the organisations already close to the electricity sector.

Visibility and interoperability help here too. They turn many small, distributed resources into something the electricity system can understand, value and potentially use.

The direction is encouraging

The Authority’s summary is a positive step. It recognises that flexibility has value, but that the market still needs better visibility, clearer signals, more consistent arrangements and practical experience.

Cortexo welcomes the Authority’s leadership in bringing these issues together.

The next stage will not be solved by technology alone. It will require coordination, market design, commercial models, regulatory clarity and a willingness to learn by doing.

But the direction is becoming clearer. Flexibility exists. The value exists. The task now is to make it visible, interoperable and trusted enough to become a normal part of how New Zealand plans and operates its electricity system.

For Cortexo, that is the role Flexviz is helping to support: making distributed flexibility visible, so the market can better understand what exists today and what could be possible tomorrow.