New Zealand’s 2019-20 RCPD season has come to a close after an eventful year. We saw sudden shifts in energy usage due to a global pandemic and resultant lockdowns that had major impacts on the periods of peak demand throughout the year.
What is RCPD?
Regional Coincident Peak Demand (RCPD) is a program that is implemented by Transpower. It charges energy consumers a fee based on energy usage during the 100 30-minute periods of highest demand over the previous year. This fee can be a significant portion of an energy bill. For example, an organisation with a 10 MW load would’ve had a $1 million fee for last year.
How does Enel X help you save money on RCPD?
By reducing power consumption during the RCPD intervals, our customers save a significant portion of their electricity bills.
We help customers curtail their loads by forecasting intervals which are predicted to be in the top 100 RCPD intervals. We give our customers daily forecasts that outline the relative risk of RCPD intervals. This helps businesses plan their activities around potential periods where they will curtail their loads, which is what we call a dispatch.
We take the guesswork out of managing RCPD charges by providing dispatch notifications ahead of the intervals. Our notifications are via call, SMS or email, whichever the customer prefers. Our team of analysts and operators monitor grid conditions 24/7/365, and can dispatch a facility automatically whenever RCPD conditions may occur.
The 2020 season
Going into winter, system demand was much lower than normal with New Zealand’s lockdown. At the time, our long-range forecast indicated the lower demand would continue with through much of the season.
By the start of June, the lockdown was lifted and demand returned to normal more quickly than expected. As it did, we adjusted our dispatch decisions. At this point, we had already dispatched customers on intervals with lower levels of demand than we normally would have. This meant we had to run additional dispatches once New Zealand returned to higher demand levels.
Our target for RCPD capture is 80% of the highest intervals, which we exceeded by capturing 84% meaning our customers saved around $91,100 per MW year from their demand charges by reducing energy use during the peak grid periods.
We communicated with our customers throughout the season who were grateful for the strong results, and understanding of the challenging conditions.
