With Peaky Bank, you’ll get paid $2/kWh to reduce your usage when things get peaky.
What do you mean by “peaky”?
The electricity market gets really peaky when there is a lot of demand for electricity stretching capacity to supply. This is when wholesale spot prices soar, and also when we tend to use more of that dirty generation (like coal).
Normal peaks occur in the morning (between 7 – 9am) when we’re all busy getting ready for our day, or in the evening (between 5 – 9pm) when we’re all back home cooking and doing whatever we need to do! When things get really peaky during these times then we have a Peaky Event.
How does Peaky Bank help?
At Electric Kiwi, we are all about loadshifting, as it reduces costs for our customers and helps reduce New Zealand’s emissions by reducing demand when it’s peaky so less coal and gas needs to be burned.
We believe that Kiwis deserve a seat at the table. Peaky Bank is your opportunity to help reduce those peaks when there’s a Peaky Event and be rewarded for doing so.
Key things to know:
- Peaky Events will last for 1 – 3 hours and will very likely be during normal morning and evening peak times. They will most likely be during winter and early spring.
- We will send customers Peaky Bank notifications by email and app when things are peaky – this will likely be the night before morning events or by lunchtime for evening events.
- You can opt out of these notifications at any time.
- Peaky Bank notifications will let you know the time and length of the peaky period.
- To be eligible for the reward you need to opt in to each event.
- If you choose to participate you will be paid $2/kWh for the electricity that you reduce (this will be calculated based on your normal usage using the method described below)
How do I maximise my rewards?
We don’t recommend that people sit in the dark or go cold. But there are simple things you can do to reduce your electricity usage for an hour or two.
- Turn off lights in rooms you are not using.
- Turn off heating in rooms you are not using.
- Delay putting on the washing machine, dryer or dishwasher.
- Delay charging things like phones, computers and cars.
- Turn off stuff that you are not using (like the TV in the spare room).
FAQs
How do you figure out how much I reduced my power by?
We will take the half-hourly profile of your power usage over the past four weekdays, or four weekend days (if the Peaky Event is on a weekend). These four days will exclude any days which had a Peaky Event.
We will then calculate how much your profile changed during the Peaky Event and then calculate the energy saved in kWh based on your total energy usage on the day.
When will this happen?
Peaky Bank rewards are more likely to happen in the morning, and the evening and during the winter months. This is because this is when Kiwis use the most power.
When will my Peaky Bank credits hit my account?
We will run a process monthly to credit your account for all of the peaky bank rewards that you are due. Some months this may be for multiple events.
Are these events an emergency?
No. Only Transpower can issue warning notices about potential supply issues with the national grid. The national grid is very well managed, and while things get tight (and expensive) fairly often, this does not usually mean there is anything to worry about. However, it is possible that a Peaky Event coincides with a Transpower warning notice.
Either way, as a household you are not obligated to reduce or shift your load, as Transpower, the distribution networks, generators and very large electricity consumers are also doing their part to manage the risk. However, you still might want to take part to add to your Peaky Bank, help reduce emissions and just generally be helpful as every little bit counts!
Do I have to do this?
Nope. We know this is not for everyone. If you don’t want to participate you do not need to, and if you want to stop getting notifications you can opt out (we will provide this option on all of the email notifications, and then remove you from the list if you ask us to).
There might be the rare occasion when there is a genuine grid emergency. In this case we will notify you of this and post social media messages. You will also hear about it directly from Transpower and from trusted news media.
