We run the wholesale electricity market and operate the power system so that New Zealand homes and businesses can access the electricity they need, every second of every day.
As the heart of the power system, we connect the generators of electricity with electricity retailers (who on-sell it to consumers) through the wholesale electricity market. We then manage the flow of that electricity across Transpower’s high-voltage transmission network to each of the 29 local lines companies that supply individual homes and businesses across their low-voltage networks. And we carry electricity to a number of large industrial customers connected directly to the national grid.
A key part of our role is to ensure that electricity supply and demand are in balance at all times and to manage voltage and frequency on the grid to ensure it remains stable at all times.
We also monitor how much energy, or fuel, is available to the system over different time horizons to help the industry understand whether we have enough generation capacity to power the country. As part of this we track and report on generation capacity, demand and the mix of fuels being used at any given time. You can view this live power system data on our homepage, or in more detail here.
We then work with generators and other asset owners, including Transpower as the owner of the national grid, to ensure there is enough transmission capacity to deliver electricity from where it is produced to where it is being used. Find out more about how we monitor security of supply and transmission capacity here.
The System Operator is an independent function of Transpower regulated by the Electricity Authority under the Electricity Industry Participation Code (the Code). More information about: our independence, can be found on the page An Independent System Operator; our relationship with the Electricity Authority and how we work together to deliver long term benefits to New Zealand electricity users, can be found here.