Retail Discussions

New EMI API release – Version 2 of the ICP connection data API now available

2020-05-25T05:13:22.7930000

As part of our initiatives to enhance additional consumer choice of electricity services (ACCES) and customer access to their data, we have released version 2 of the ICP connection data API. This release follows an external review of the API which found no material issues.

The original ICP connection API (v1) will eventually be deprecated but for now will continue to operate so that services relying on it will not be interrupted. Version 1 of the API will be turned off on 1 September 2020.

Subscribers to the API should migrate to version 2 and take advantage of the additional information at their convenience, but should do so before 1 September 2020. Migrating to the new version will require a simple change to the URL call to include v2 in the call and some changes to the search call request parameters - see release notes below. Some minor tweaks will also be required to appropriately handle the additional fields and improved error responses available in v2. Users can test the new API and responses on the API platform.

The My Meter webpage has also been updated to provide access to the new registry fields released through v2 of the API.

Version 2 ICP connection data API release notes

The original ICP connection data API that was released in 2016 as part of the Authority's 'Retail Data Project (RDP)'.

Version (v2) is now available and follows further consultation in 2019 as part of the 'Additional Consumer Choice of Electricity Services (ACCES)' project. This version of the API includes additional fields along with some other enhancements.

'Get by ID' and 'Get by ID list' call changes

New fields released

"PropertyNameOrDescription" (string) in the Address object (called "Property Name" in the registry functional spec)
"InitialElectricallyConnectedDate" (string formatted as YYYY-MM-DD) in the Network object
"TraderSwitchInProgress" (boolean) in the Trader object
"ANZSICcode" (string) in the Trader object
"ProfileCode" (string) in the Trader object
"CertificationExpiryDate" (string formatted as YYYY-MM-DD) in the Meter installation object
"ComponentType" (string) in the Meter component object
"SwitchReadIndicator" (boolean) in the Meter channel object (called "Settlement Indicator" in the registry functional spec, but only indicates if the channel read may be needed in the switch process)
"NetworkParticipantName" (string) in Network object (included via lookup of "NetworkParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)
"TraderParticipantName" (string) in Trader object (included via lookup of "TraderParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)
"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantName" (string) in Metering object (included via lookup of "MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)

Moved fields

"ICPIdentifier" moved to first in the return order
"ICPStatus" moved to second in the return order

Renamed fields

"NetworkParticipantID" in the Network object renamed from "Network"
"TraderParticipantID" in the Trader object renamed from "Trader"
"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID" in the Metering object renamed from "MeteringEquipmentProvider"

'Search' call changes

New fields released

"PropertyNameOrDescription" (string) in Address object (called "Property Name" in the registry functional spec)

Renamed request parameters

“streetNumber” renamed from “unitOrNumber”
“streetName” renamed from “streetOrPropertyName”

Gating and response code changes

400 'bad request' code included filtering ICPs not meeting the required format
Messages will be returned in the messages object with the appropriate code where available

'Get by ID' call - successful response sample (The 'Get by ID list' call follows the same format)

{

"ICPIdentifier": "string",

"ICPStatus": 0,

"Address": {

"PropertyNameOrDescription": "string",

"PhysicalAddressUnit": "string",

"PhysicalAddressNumber": "string",

"PhysicalAddressStreet": "string",

"PhysicalAddressSuburb": "string",

"PhysicalAddressTown": "string",

"PhysicalAddressRegion": "string",

"PhysicalAddressPostCode": 0,

"GPS_Easting": 0.086597829994870867,

"GPS_Northing": 0.089592538769447838

},

"Network": {

"NetworkParticipantID": "string",

"NetworkParticipantName": "string",

"POC": "string",

"ReconciliationType": "string",

"InitialElectricallyConnectedDate": "string",

"GenerationCapacity": 0.59222133055867521,

"FuelType": "string",

"DirectBilledStatus": "string"

},

"Pricing": {

"DistributorPriceCategoryCode": "string",

"DistributorLossCategoryCode": "string",

"ChargeableCapacity": 0.74166837179270262,

"DistributorInstallationDetails": "string"

},

"Trader": {

"TraderSwitchInProgress": false,

"TraderParticipantID": "string",

"TraderParticipantName": "string",

"ProfileCode": "string",

"ANZSICcode": "string",

"DailyUnmeteredkWh": "string",

"UnmeteredLoadDetails": "string"

},

"Metering": {

"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID": "string",

"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantName": "string",

"InstallationInformation": [

{

"MeteringInstallationCategory": 0,

"MeteringInstallationType": "string",

"CertificationExpiryDate": "string",

"ComponentInformation": [

{

"ComponentType": "string",

"MeteringComponentSerialNumber": "string",

"MeterType": "string",

"AMIFlag": false,

"CompensationFactor": 0.68670529385750934,

"ChannelInformation": [

{

"MeteringComponentSerialNumber": "string",

"ChannelNumber": 0,

"RegisterContentCode": "string",

"PeriodOfAvailability": "string",

"UnitOfMeasurement": "string",

"EnergyFlowDirection": "string",

"AccumulatorType": "string",

"SwitchReadIndicator": false

}

]

}

]

}

]

},

"Messages": [

"string"

]

}

'Search' call – successful response sample

{

"Address": {

"PropertyNameOrDescription": "string",

"PhysicalAddressStreet": "string",

"PhysicalAddressSuburb": "string",

"PhysicalAddressTown": "string",

"PhysicalAddressRegion": "string",

"PhysicalAddressPostCode": 0,

"GPS_Easting": 0.11158078265068716,

"GPS_Northing": 0.53635229909462989

},

"ICPIdentifier": "string",

"ICPStatus": 0,

"Messages": [

"string"

]

}

Minor change to ICP API v2 result set

2025-06-09T02:53:53.7570000

Until today, the ICP API would return records for meter components that have been flagged as removed, yet the date field showing when the meter was actually removed was not in the result set. This had the potential to confuse API users into believing the meter remained installed and active when it was neither.

Such records are now being filtered out of the result set; all meter component records can reliably be assumed to pertain to currently active meters.

Cheers

Phil

ICP connection data access via MS Excel?

2016-06-11T11:05:12.8800000

Hi EMI,

As an engineer, but not a programmer, I am looking for a simple way to import ICP Connection Data into Excel.

It appears there are two available data sources:

1 - For one off queries (which is typically me) -> http://www.ea.govt.nz/consumers/your-power-data-in-your-hands/my-meter

Once I query an ICP once via the website form, the data is downloadable at http://www.ea.govt.nz/assets/csv/(enter icp here).csv

Once this CSV is available online, import into Excel is simple. However it appears this is only generated once the ICP has been run through form at least once.

2 - API

The API appears cool, but I have no experience with these data sources and have has little luck online. Do you know if I can get Excel to query API and return data?

Maybe there is another option that I am not aware of that might work also?

Thanks a lot,

Nathan

EIEP14 questions

2025-01-26T04:28:46.6400000

Hi,

I'm looking for some clarification regarding EIEP14 format.

1) Register content code - spefication states that this field is conditional and can be empty (null) for non-fixed or non-delivered tariff components. I'm looking at case where the same tariff applies to more than one (or more commonly all) register content codes. Is it possible to leave this empty (null) for all register content codes? I assume it's not possible to use more codes in this field as it would clash with period of availability.
2) Period of availability - similar question as above - in case all register content codes with all possible availabilities are covered by this tariff, can this field be empty?
3) Is it possible to state multiple periods of availability for the same content code - eg. same tariff applies to CN15, CN16, CN17, CN18, CN19, CN20?

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Tom

Installed distributed generation "other" fuel type

2025-01-20T01:50:35.8100000

I'm looking to estimate the total number of distributed fossil generators, and wondered if there are any further insights into breakdown of fuel types in the "Other" catergory for installed distributed generation ICP count?

The "Other" fuel type catergory includes any process that doesn't fit neatly into another catergory including multiple generators of different fuel types.

There are a lot of ICPs (over 2700) with small (less than or equal to 10kW) generator capacity in this catergory and around 2200 are in Canterbury, and to a lesser extent in Marlborough and Auckland. Most of these are residential ICPs. Could many of the ICPs with "Other" distributed generation in Canterbury be solar, (the growth trend seems to match solar)?

Meter Register Content Codes - Impact on Billing

2019-10-29T00:13:25.5770000

My interest in meter register content codes started with the configuration of register content for billing and reconciliation of network charges for an electricity retailer. It soon became apparent that incorrect regsister content codes in the electricity Registry can stop a retailer from quoting, let alone switching and billing a customer.

At the back-end, retailers are charged for use of electricity network based on the volume reported against network tariff codes. Simplification of register content code mapping to network tariffs is another area of interest - as this can have a siginifcant impact on electricity retailer margin.

In order to place greater transparency on this issue, it is suggested that a MEP dataset be produced to indicate the party responsible for correcting incorrect register content codes and period of availability.

To this end, I have pulled apart a report from the "ICP and metering details" page on the EA's EMI website. Data are originally split out into combinations of meter registers, with respect to individual price category codes. For this analysis R statistical analysis software is employed to re-shape the data to facilitate counting of discrete register content code combinations.

Some charts are presented for review. I will attach the R code to enable other users to take a look throught the reshaped dataset.

Reshaped to indicate the portion of register content codes per network.

"I" flow register content codes with load codes instead of generation. Should the customer be charged or credited for generation of energy injected into the network?

Where the correct "EG" register content code is applied to embedded generation, but the period of availaibilty is not 24 hours, this is also considered to be illegitimate. In some cases this may be due to meter configuration of load periods to match generation periods.

Where an embedded generation (EG) register is presented with load flow, should the customer be charged or credited for generation volume?

Uncontrolled registers with less than 24 hours availabiltiy. Should the customer pay full price, or do they get a discount for lower availability of supply?

Inclusive registers with 24 hours of availability appears to be a contradiction - that being downstream controlled supply is available 24 hours per day - i.e. uncontrolled.

The presence of 24 hours of availability on registers with definitions other than 24 hours of availabilty is noted.

EMI report updated – Installed DG trends report now tracks size of new installations

2016-08-28T23:53:53.5900000

Efficiency is a key limb of the Electricity Authority’s statutory objective and efficient investment in generating plant is of interest. We track trends in the installed distributed generation (connected to local networks, not the grid) for many types of generation and fuel sources. Distributors are responsible for populating the registry with the information we use to do this.

Investors choose to invest in generating plant for a range of reasons. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about and interest in the economics of household generation, and how the economics might look relative to the underlying distribution and wholesale energy pricing that gets wrapped into retail plans.

The uptake in investment in solar generation in the residential market segment (now over 10,000 connections) provides a robust dataset to look at some of these trends. We can gain insights by looking at the timing of new generation investment and the capacity of these new investments. This may provide a useful view of how residential investors are responding to existing price signals in the market at the time of investment or perhaps expectations of future changes.

In terms of solar photovoltaic generation we have observed residential investors responding to changes in the price signals they face – these include but are not restricted to:

the reduction in the price of solar panels and inverters,
historical increases in retail pricing, and
the 25 cents/kWh buy back rate for the first 5 kWh exported each day that was offered by Meridian Energy until December 2014.

Here are a couple of examples focused on small solar connections that show some interesting insights:

The residential (< 10 kW) average new installation size has decreased from 3.722 kW in August 2014 to 3.221 kW in July 2016. Does this suggest residential investors are focusing on self-consumption rather than selling excess back to the market?

Average size of new residential PV installs by month

South Island residential investors (< 10 kW) on average invest in an array 300 Watts larger than their North Island counterparts. (South Island residential consumers consume more electricity than their North Island counterparts and perhaps get fewer sunshine hours?)

Average size of residential PV installations

Observing changes in investments in response to changing market conditions provides valuable insights into economic efficiency and investor preferences.

Question on Retailers' Obligations to Provide General Tariff Data

2024-08-06T21:55:56.6700000

Hi everyone,

I need some help regarding the clarification on the Electricity Industry Participation Code Amendment (Access to Retail Tariff Information) 2015.

When I asked a retailer for their general tariff data, they directed me to their website. However, the website requires entering a specific address to see tariffs for different regions.

Is this approach compliant with the amendment, or should the retailer provide a consolidated list of all tariffs without needing to input an address? Additionally, can the retailer charge a fee for providing this information if they argue a consolidated list of tariff data is not their normal format for providing tariff information?

Thanks for your help!

Best regards,

Evon

Residential Consumption Trends Main Centres

2024-08-20T22:25:17.8100000

Hi,

Just a quick question - can you confirm that the household consumption figures published are net ie electricity imported (to household) less any household export from solar for example? Thanks

Batteries in Installed distributed generation trends

2024-07-29T06:05:02.3830000

I noticed that in the installed distributed generation trends report it now includes solar with and without battery. Can you please tell me how this is determined and therefore how accurate a measure this may be. Thanks

Date selection issue in Market Share trends data

2024-06-23T21:17:34.0670000

When I select 1 Apr - 30 Apr 2024 in the market share trends dataset, it displays the data for 31/3/2024 aswell as the April data.

ICP API Offline (503)

2024-05-17T09:18:01.7000000

I just noticed the ICP aPI is offline: https://emi.portal.azure-api.net/

It returns:

Service Unavailable

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Something wrong with the switch summary dataset

2024-04-29T03:06:24.9430000

Looks like the switch number is not correct today? Is there anything wrong with the dataset from backend? There is no way for around 10K ICP losses for all three big companies in Novemeber. Can someone look this up?

Market Share Snapshot Breakdown by Regional Council not working

2024-03-28T02:41:18.0030000

When I use the market share snapshot report and try to breakdown by regional council for December it tells me there is no data available.

Residential consumption trends - time scale

2024-03-30T01:58:06.6830000

I recently accessed the Residential Consumption trends report, having not done so for a few years. As I recall, and the notes to the report suggest this is still possible, you used to be able to select at least "monthly" and "annual" as the time scale for the data. I cannot see a timescale choice.

I want annual data but cannot readily just aggregate monthly data as I am interested in the annual results for the various percentiles, and a monhly sum is not accurate for this purpose (for example adding up 12 months of 5th perentile consumptions does not give the 5th percentile annual consumption - it will almost certainly be too low.

Is the report stil supposed to support time scale choice?. If so, how do I make that happen? If not, the percentile reporting is inaccurate if aggregated.

New dataset – ICP share by MEP and trader

2024-03-05T19:23:51.4670000

A new retail dataset has been published in the ICP and metering details collection. It will be updated monthly, soon after the 10th business day of the month.

The market share by MEP and trader dataset presents the count of ICPs by MEP and trader for each network reporting region. It also breaks down the ICP count by residential, commercial, and industrial connections.

The Metering snapshot report on EMI shows market share by one of four entities: MEP, MEP parent company, Trader, and Retail parent company. This new dataset contains the crosstab of two of those entities – MEP and Trader. The notes on the 'More information' tab of the Metering snapshot report can be consulted for greater detail about this dataset.

EIEP13 consumption file examples

2016-06-27T04:12:18.1370000

EIEP13 files are used to request consumer consumption data in a standard format.

The easiest way to see some examples of the data returned is to start requesting them. However, I’ve managed to track down a real example of the 13A and 13B formats to help give people a flavour of what they’ll get – you’ll see that I’ve anonymised them by removing the ICP and meter serial number from the files. I’ve attached these to this discussion.

More information on the EIEP13A, B and C formats is available here.

Information on the procedures to request consumption data using EIEP13C is available here.

I’ll update this post when I have an example of an EIEP13C request file.

[Edit: originally posted sample file for EIEP13A replaced with modified version on 2/08/2023 by Guy Ross.]

EMI reports updated – Residential savings and consumption figures released (2017)

2018-06-11T23:21:27.5270000

Residential savings

Estimated average residential savings figures for 2017 were $207 per residential connection. The average savings figure estimates the savings available across all residential consumers if they had switched to the lowest priced generally available plan each month.

The national average figure increased just over $40 from $164 in 2016. This increase is primarily due to some retailers increasing their price prior to winter in regional markets where they held large market share, while other competitors either delayed increases until after winter or did not increase prices at all (despite high wholesale prices for a period of time near the end of winter).

Discover further insights relating to residential savings in the following reports:

Figure 1: Residential average savings by network area, 2017

See the information provided with the reports for assumptions that are important to this analysis.

Residential consumption

In 2017 average residential consumption appears to have been normal early in the year and below average in second half of the year. On an annual basis, this resulted in a 0.2 per cent increase in average residential consumption over 2016 which had a particularly warm start to winter.

Total residential consumption was estimated to be up 1.5 per cent on 2016 levels due largely to an increase in residential connections. This more than recovered from the reduced 2016 level which was 1.1 per cent down on 2015 consumption.

Discover further insights related to residential consumption in the following reports:

Figure 2: Change in residential consumption, 2017

Registered EMI users can save report instances and construct their own dashboard(s) from reports they refer to frequently. They can also subscribe to receive notifications of discussions in categories or with tags that they are interested in. For example, to receive “EMI news” notifications click follow at the top of this page.

Consumer Plans and Prices Extract

2023-05-03T22:41:17.1370000

I noticed the really useful discussion on prices recently here but it doesn't seem to have exactly what I'm looking for. Is there a periodic data extract made available for all of the prices and plans each electricty provider in NZ offers? I could scrape their websites, but that seems wasteful. Looking to map from a given ICP to all the available prices and plans that are on offer at that time to the consumer.

Thanks in advance

Stephen

https://ahiko.nz

EMI datasets updated – NSP table, metering configurations, market structure and shape files

2017-12-20T23:42:07.7070000

We've made some changes to existing datasets on EMI. These changes are outlined below. The existing files and file structures will be maintained until after the data for January 2018 is published in mid-February. Users will have to migrate any automated processes to the new file names and locations before the February data is published in March.

1. Network supply points table

Updated filename and location and the addition of region ID (one column) for network reporting regions to assist users when combining NSPs with other datasets that we publish.

Obsolete file and location (to be disestablished mid-February 2018):

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Wholesale/Datasets/Reconciliation/Network_supply_points_table

New file and location:

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Wholesale/Datasets/MappingsAndGeospatial/NetworkSupplyPointsTable

2. Distribution price category code added to metering configurations file

Some participants asked us to add distribution price category code to the metering configurations file that we publish. We agreed that this would help reduce barriers to entry for participants and third parties by helping parties setup billing processes or match consumers to retail plans.

Obsolete file and location (to be disestablished mid-February):

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Retail/Datasets/Metering_configurations

New file and location:

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Retail/Datasets/MarketStructure/ICPandMeteringDetails

3. Rename of market structure files

This is simply a tweak to file names and location.

Obsolete file and location (to be disestablished mid-February 2018):

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Retail/Datasets/Market_structure

New file and location:

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Retail/Datasets/MarketStructure

4. Network region shape files

Relocating these files to make them easier to find.

Obsolete file and location (to be disestablished mid-February 2018):

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Wholesale/Datasets/Reconciliation/Network_region_shapefiles

New file and location:

www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Wholesale/Datasets/MappingsAndGeospatial/NetworkRegionShapefiles

New dataset on EMI – Data on metering configurations

2016-10-02T22:11:54.5600000

Agents, third parties, and new entrant retailers have asked for information about metering configurations at ICPs throughout the country. These parties are investing in systems and processes, and it’s helpful for them to know all of the options up front rather than discovering each unique configuration one-by-one as they engage with consumers or use the ICP connection data API.

We’ve released a file detailing unique metering configurations at ICPs and the number of ICPs with each configuration. This information is provided at meter register level for any active meter in the registry at any installation at active ICPs. The register information is provided as a space delimited list with energy flow direction, register content code, and period of availability. More information can be found in the registry functional specification.

The file will be updated and released with other retail reports each month. As with all files in the datasets folders, they are also accessible via our FTP site.

ICP connection data API - not available, 19 Sep 2022

2022-09-18T22:46:18.2100000

The ICP connection data API seems to have gone belly up this morning - from around 8am perhaps. I am getting errors such as: {"Code":500,"Message":"API is currently unavailable to process this request. (R)"}

Process heat - electrification vs biomass

2022-08-08T01:34:50.4130000

I'm interested in tracking the switch from fossil fuels to either electricity or bio-mass in process heat. I have noticed that biomass is included in the distributed generation trends dataset. Does anyone know what this would cover?

In particular, say Fonterra or some other company replace a coal boiler with bio-mass; would this be included in this data or does it specifically need to be used to generate electricity (which would then be subsequently used in some process)?

Bonus question: If this data set does not track such conversions, does anyone know of a source that does?

find grid exit point region

2022-04-19T03:21:55.6900000

Hi Guys

I know that pricing in NZ is based on zones like OTA and ISL.

Can anyone guide me how can I find these region list if I have an ICP.

Iam using the link below to find the GXP but it doesnt tell which region the ICP belongs to.

https://www.ea.govt.nz/consumers/your-power-data-in-your-hands/my-meter

Apologies If Iam not clear, Iam trying to find the region based on the grid exit point like which region does WIR0331 belongs?

Is there a list where I can find GXP and zone locations.

Changes to EMI administrators – Matthew Keir signing off from EMI

2021-12-19T05:18:25.8070000

Hi everyone,

After more than 11 years at the Electricity Authority, I am moving on to pursue other opportunities in 2022. I'm signing off from my role as product owner, a designer, and an admin of EMI.

It has been a privilege to help bring this platform to life for the Authority and our stakeholders and to champion the role of open data and evidence-based policy. EMI has and continues to inform policy development and decision making within the industry. It provides insights, supports innovation, and enables others to monitor market performance. Ultimately, it enhances transparency and confidence in the evolving electricity market.

Thanks to my colleagues for all your hard work in helping to develop the content and system – keep it up! A big thanks to our many EMI users, members (nearly 1000), and API subscribers for supporting this platform and our initiatives.

Happy holidays and all the best for 2022!

Matthew Keir

API management policy change – ICP connection data API (further adjustments)

2021-07-28T22:57:18.2570000

Following the review of recent issues relating to the performance of the ICP connection data API, and work undertaken in response to these issues, we are making further changes to the API management policy to reduce the likelihood of additional issues impacting our users.

The new management policy will be applied on Thursday 5 August and is as follows:

A management policy is set on this API restricting users to 50 calls per minute for ‘search’ and 75 calls per minute for ‘get by id’ calls and/or 10 MB of data per hour.

Our capacity to process aggregate call volumes remains well below what it was previously. This restriction on volumes is to ensure and that the operation of the registry market system is not disrupted.

The new management policy has been set to provide all users a fair go. While unlikely with this policy in place, there remains the possibility of receiving a 503 response (indicating the registry is busy) during periods of heavy use by multiple concurrent users. If you encounter 503 responses, please reduce your call volumes and try again later.

Participants are reminded that they have the ability to use the registry and registry web services directly for operational uses in accordance with the registry access policy.

API management policy change – ICP connection data API

2021-06-21T02:11:15.6930000

We have previously had to modify the ICP API management policy. We are about to implement additional changes that will impose further restrictions on the number of calls able to be issued to the API. These changes will take effect at the close of business today.

The steady increase in large aggregate call volumes coming through the ICP connection data API have been continuing to adversely impact the underlying registry infrastructure. Further complicating matters, the registry manager has had to implement more restrictive firewall policies to guard against malicious activity. To preserve the integrity of their system and its responsiveness, the registry manager has further reduced the number of concurrent calls they will manage.

We're making adjustments to our API management policy on the ICP API in line with this. These changes are designed to smooth out the load spikes our users collectively generate on the registry system.

The new management policy is below. Once user load on the registry systems has stabilised, we may revise this policy.

A management policy is set on this API restricting users to 250 calls per minute for ‘search’ and ‘get by id’ calls and the multiple ICPs ‘get by id list’ call will no longer be available.

ICP Connection Data API - failures with code 500 or 404

2021-06-21T22:40:20.3200000

Yesterday the ICP data API was very patchy, lots of error code 500 (API is currently unavailable to process this request). Today it is giving 404 ( Resource not found). I'm using

https://emi.azure-api.net/ICPConnectionData/v2/list/?ids=

Has something changed?

Low fixed charge plan uptake by year and annual consumption

2021-05-26T23:02:41.5330000

Following the recommendation in the Electricity Price Review, MBIE has investigated and consulted on options to phase out the low fixed charge (LFC) regulations. The Authority provided MBIE with information to inform and support their analysis and options development.

Two charts are presented below to highlight some of these insights and inform other interested parties.

Figure 1: Distribution of consumption for primary residences supplied through LFC and standard plans - 2020

Figure 2: Proportion of primary residences supplied through LFC plans over time

Note:

1. Retailers are not required to record primary residences and the approach varies significantly across the industry. Some ICPs were filtered out from these results due to inconsistencies or lack of consumption data, so the counts will be less than the total primary residences. LFC status is at 31 Dec 2020 and consumption data is for 2020. LFC plans must be offered to primary residences but are not required to be offered to holiday homes etc.

2. Annual consumption thresholds of 8000kWh and 9000kWh (in the lower South Island) where consumers will be better off selecting an LFC plan are set in the regulations. The figures above only present aggregated national results.

Attachment: The attached file includes the data presented in Figure 1.

Real time access to ICP half-hour data

2021-05-09T21:44:19.4830000

Hi experts,

I am wondering if real-time power usage (half-hour) data are available for a certain ICP and can be received on a daily/hourly basis.

We monitor our clients' energy consumption to help them implement action plans for energy and cost saving so your advise will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

API management policy change – ICP connection data API

2021-02-05T03:51:11.2200000

Large aggregate call volumes coming through the ICP connection data API have been adversely impacting the underlying registry infrastructure. To preserve the integrity of their system and its responsiveness the registry manager has reduced the number of concurrent calls they will manage.

We're making adjustments to our API management policy on this API in line with this. These changes are designed to smooth out the load spikes our users collectively generate on the registry system.

The new management policy is below. This will take effect soon.

A management policy is set on this API restricting users to 250 calls per minute for ‘search’ and ‘get by id’ calls while calls for multiple ICPs ‘get by id list’ is restricted to 10 calls per minute, each up to 50 ICPs. Additionally, users are restricted to 5 MB of data per 15 min period.

ICP Connection Data API: Many failures with code:500

2021-02-01T00:33:51.8430000

Starting over the recent weekend, the ICP Connection Data API has been behaving very erratically.

In particular, the "get by ID list" call appears to be failing with code 500 ({"Code":500,"Message":"API is currently unavailable to process this request."}) a high proportion of the time, even though it also does sometimes succeed with exactly the same parameters.

Is there some kind of issue with the registry database that is causing this?

When is it likely to be fixed?

Lines Companies and Area Codes

2020-10-06T21:38:05.3170000

Where can I find a list of lines/network companies including embedded networks with their respective Area codes (2 digit number) ?

e.g. Orion "56"

All lists I've found don't include the area code.

New report on EMI – Consumption data request trends

2020-09-25T03:28:44.8730000

We recently released a report on consumption data request trends.

The Authority amended the Code to improve the EIEP13 process used by consumer agents to request consumption data from a retailer on behalf of a consumer. These changes sought to address concerns that access to data and the use of that data to drive innovation was being hampered. The Code changes came into effect in March 2020 and were designed to streamline access via standardised file formats and processes. This report provides insights into how the agents and retailers are using the new process.

Users can view information as either, requests submitted, or responses provided in each month. A range of measures are reported and each can be shown as a count or proportion of requests that have been made. The measures included in the report are:

Number of requests or responses
Number declined
Number with no response
Number with a response over the 5-day threshold
Average business days for responses

The new process came into effect as Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand and our response to combat the spread escalated. The initial industry response to the new Code provisions was poor. However, this response has improved over time (although on lower volumes of requests). Increased automation for handling requests by participants should see further improvement occur including better adherence to the file formats.

Average business days for responses to consumption data requests

Over 90% of requests are by one consumer agent (Cortexo)

More insights are available in the report or the public dashboard called consumption data request activity. Users can hover over data points for more context on relative measures.

Version 1 of the ICP connection data API is about to be turned off

2020-08-25T23:29:40.3230000

The ICP connection API (v1) was originally slated to be turned off on 1 September 2020 - see the discussion here.

We are now proposing to turn it off by the close of play on 14 September 2020. If you haven't already done so, please migrate to v2 now.

Thanks

Phil

Explaining significant changes to ICP market share in market segments, Feb – Apr 2020

2020-07-13T03:33:43.0500000

We’ve received several questions around changes in market share, market segments, and switching numbers specifically in relation to Meridian. I’ve published a simple dashboard that helps highlight what is going on. Care is required when interpreting the various market share measures, given the changes that have occurred.

Retailer growth in industrial ICPs, Feb - Apr 2020

Market share, as measured by ICP counts, can change due to:

winning or losing ICPs through customer switching,
winning or losing ICPs through commercial transfers or bulk switches (e.g. purchasing the retail book of another retailer),
winning new connections or having connections disestablished (e.g. ICPs changing status),
within a market segment, market share can change as ICPs are assigned new ANZSIC codes.

Meridian has shifted ICPs between market segments

Shifting ICPs between market segments occurs due to changes in ANZSIC codes for each ICP in the registry, and is not affected by switching. Early in 2020 Meridian migrated back-office systems. Their old system recorded an ANZSIC code for each ICP and allowed the business classification to reflect the activity occurring at each ICP. Meridian’s new system records a single ANZSIC code per customer. In this situation, a single customer with an account pertaining to multiple ICPs will have the same ANZSIC code for all of that customer's ICPs. The shift observed in the data may be farm residences that were previously recorded as residential connections now being recorded as commercial or industrial, as the electricity account is settled by a business customer.

ANZSIC codes are required to be populated in the registry in Schedule 11.1 9(1)(k) of the Code. The provision refers to ‘customers’ at the ICP rather than electricity use “except as provided in subclause (1A), the relevant business classification code applicable to the customer at the ICP, in accordance with business classification codes published by the Authority”. Meridian did clarify this interpretation of ‘customer’ with the Authority at the planning stages of their migration and the Authority confirmed the interpretation. Earlier guidance from the Authority (at the time the Part 10 changes were implemented) sought to clarify the situation where a single ICP supplied multiple uses. In this case, the ANZSIC code populated in the registry should reflect the Trader's expectation of the predominant use of electricity.

The changes Meridian has made have a significant impact on all metrics presented by market segments on this website. During the time Meridian was undertaking their back-office migration, they were also active in winning customers through switching, and also winning new connections. This has made it difficult for some viewers to understand what is going on with the market share metrics. The public dashboard helps explain what has occurred.

The public dashboard has four pages:

1. Market share trends, all ICPs and by market segments, 1 Jun 2018 – 31 May 2020

Meridian’s market share of all ICPs has increased over time to almost 15% (similar to the small and medium retailers combined).
The effect of Meridian changing the ANSZIC codes of ICPs en masse is evident during the period 1 Feb to 30 Apr 2020. The drop in residential ICPs is accompanied by an increase in commercial and industrial ICPs.

2. Market share summary, all ICPs and by market segments, 1 Feb – 30 Apr 2020

Meridian gained 6122 ICPs. If 5612 were from switching (see below), then ~510* ICPs must be the net result of new ICPs less disestablished ICPs.
Distorted Meridian loss of 5.7% for their residential ICPs during the period despite winning 2112 through switching.
Distorted Meridian increase of 16.5% commercial ICPs and 30% industrial ICPs during the period.
Given the increase in ICPs in each business segment (see below) other retailers may have lost market share in the business segment despite not losing (or even gaining) many ICPs.

3. Switching summary, all ICPs and by market segments, 1 Feb – 30 Apr 2020

Meridian gained 16,368 and lost 10,756 ICPs giving a net increase of 5612 for the period.
Meridian had a net gain of 2112 residential ICPs through switching
Meridian had a net gain of 2362 commercial ICPs through switching
Meridian had a net gain of 1138 industrial ICPs through switching

4. Growth in ICPs, all ICPS and by market segments, 1 Feb – 30 Apr 2020

Overall ICPs in the retail market increased by 6144, with 4720 ICPs in North Island and 1424 in the South Island
Distorted drop in residential ICPs across most regions – e.g. almost a 7% decline in residential connections in Ashburton
Distorted increase in commercial and industrial ICPs across most regions – e.g. 25% increase in industrial connections in Central Canterbury

This issue will also impact other metrics such as residential savings totals, residential consumption statistics, business demand, distributed generation statistics (e.g. residential ICPs with PV dropped for the first time ever in April 2020), and potentially other government reporting on the electricity sector that relies on these data.

* Switching numbers are recorded on the date the switch is initiated in the registry and not on the completion date when any switches impact market share. This difference means that there is a slight lag between the two metrics with switches initiated at the end of one month able to impact market share in the next month. Given this lag, the simple subtraction used to determine the contribution of ICPs to Meridian's market share during the period is only approximate.

New report on EMI – Business demand trends

2020-07-28T01:28:18.4230000

We have released a new report that monitors electricity demand from business consumers on a monthly basis. This report splits network-connected business demand from residential demand for the first time, enhancing the information available on the demand side of the wholesale market. Users are able to drill down into regions and explore relative measures with and without NZAS demand included. Some examples of the insights that can be derived follow.

The report can highlight the impact that New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 had on business electricity demand and the degree to which this has now recovered.

Total business demand, 2016 - 2020 YTD

The report can help add context to recent announcements from NZAS and highlights the materiality of NZAS demand relative to total demand from the country, South Island, and Lower South Island.

NZAS annual demand as a proportion of South Island demand

The report can highlight changes in underlying business demand.

Grid-connected demand (excl. NZAS) has been trending downwards from nearly 9 per cent in 2010 to 6 per cent in 2019.
South Island network-connected business demand seasonality (irrigation). On an annual basis, this demand represents 40 per cent of total South Island demand and is roughly equivalent to network-connected business demand in the Upper North Island.

South Island network-connected demand, 2016 - 2020 YTD

For more insights see the report or dashboards below.

Recall the ‘All dashboard instances’ button at the top right of any report will display report instances that our users find useful and have added to a dashboard.

EMI reports updated – Residential consumption trends, summary, and map

2020-07-28T01:25:47.0470000

With assistance from retailers and some changes to the electricity registry transfer hub, we’ve enhanced our set of residential consumption reports so that they update on a monthly basis. This allows users to draw more timely insights. More timely information is especially helpful when trying to assess the impact that the Covid-19 response has had on residential consumption.

In addition to improving the timeliness of demand insights, we have also implemented enhancements to the residential consumption trends report:

We have included a ‘residential demand’ option under the show parameter. Residential demand is the demand that residential consumption, as measured at the ICP, imposes on the electricity system, as if it were measured at the grid point of connection (POC). In essence, we’ve adjusted the consumption to account for local network losses so that we can equate demand across the residential and business sectors at the grid POC.
Including options for the proportion of national or regional demand while excluding NZAS demand from the total. This parameter setting can provide useful insights into the breakdown of demand in a world without the Tiwai smelter.

Residential consumption hit new records for March, April, and May, up 7.7 per cent against the same period in 2019.

Total residential consumption, 2019 - 2020 YTD

Residential demand varies from 30 per cent of total demand during the summer months when NZAS demand is excluded, to 46 per cent in the winter months. We can expect residential load to account for a much higher proportion of peak demand. However, we only have monthly data at this time so cannot demonstrate this.

Residential demand as a proportion of national demand excluding NZAS, 2016 - 2020 YTD

For more insights see the collection of residential consumption reports below:

Recall the ‘All dashboard instances’ button at the top right of any report will display report instances that our users find useful and have added to a dashboard.

Bugs in ICP connection data API (or deeper)

2020-02-19T01:35:54.7500000

There appears to be a bug that stops searches by address from returning any results when the street name field begins with "CNR". This applies to at least the ICP connection data API (and so also "My meter" page). No amount of fiddling with wildcard searching or similar seems to help and I haven't found any documentation that might explain this.

For one example: 0000022666WE053, 44,CNR HORSHAM DOWNS ROAD,Rototuna North,HAMILTON,Waikato

Due to other details I've observed (decommissioned ICPs on some particular networks where all have had their addresses stripped, *except* for the "CNR" cases) it looks to me that the underlying cause might be deeper than the API itself. Perhaps the underlying index has garbled info for these cases, or they have been excluded altogether, although I cannot even begin to imagine why that would the case.

Clive Gifford

New reports on EMI – Win-back indicators

2020-06-30T00:15:02.5770000

On 31 March 2020, Part 11 of the Code was changed to ban retailers from contacting customers to offer them an incentive to stay after those customers had already initiated a switch away. However, customers may voluntarily choose to contact their previous supplier to withdraw a switch away or to arrange a switch-back. Such customer-initiated actions will appear in these new reports as potential win-backs, even though they are compliant with the Code amendment on saves and win-backs.

The ban on win-backs applies to customers that were supplied by the retailer (or a retailer in their parent group) during a switch-protected period lasting 180 days. The win-back ban is defined by the relationship between a retailer and a customer. The registry currently holds information on traders and ICPs, so looking at this information in isolation is insufficient to tell if an ICP-trader switch withdrawal or switch-back is a retailer-customer win-back. Insights can nevertheless be derived when the report highlights outliers. Such outliers may require further investigation.

Users will find the “ICPs won by” and “Show” parameters very useful when exploring trader behaviour. These parameters enable a potential win-back mechanism to be selected and represented as a simple count, relative to initiated switches away (for withdrawals), or relative to ICPs won in the month. This approach can allow outliers to be more easily identified. However, these relative results can be noisy for small micro retailers where one withdrawn switch or switch back might be 100% of gains within a month.

For more information please read the notes with the report under the more information report tab.

Win-back indicator trends

Potential win-backs within 180 days relative to ICPs won, June 2018 – May 2020

Total withdrawn trader switches as a proportion of initiated switches away, June 2018 – May 2020

Users might also be interested in Flick’s historical switch-backs vs wholesale price.

Users can follow a public dashboard that highlights the trends for a range of potential win-back metrics.

Win-back indicator summary

Potential win-backs within 180 days relative to ICPs won, May 2020

Users can follow a public dashboard that highlights insights for the latest month for a range of switching and win-back metrics.

Recall the ‘All dashboard instances’ button at the top right of any report will display reports instances that our users find useful and have added to a dashboard.

New EMI API release – 1 March 2020, Version 2 of the ICP connection data API (ACCES quick wins)

2020-02-20T02:40:33.0330000

Version 2 of the ICP connection data API is scheduled to go live on Sunday 1 March 2020. The original ICP connection API will be deprecated but will continue to operate as it currently does so no systems relying on it will be interrupted. This original version of the API will be turned off in six months’ time on 1 September 2020.

Subscribers to the API will be able to migrate to version 2 and take advantage of the additional information at their convenience. Migrating to the new version should be a simple change to the URL call to include (v2) and handling on the additional fields and improved error responses. Users can test the API on the API platform when v2 becomes available.

These changes are being made as part of the Additional Consumer Choice of Electricity Services (ACCES) project and will be accompanied by changes to the process to request consumption data from retailers. Agents are reminded that they will need to sign up to the new terms of the registry transfer hub to use EIEP13s. The new terms and sign up process will be made available next week on the provide a service with electricity page.

Version 2 ICP connection data API release notes

The original ICP connection data API that was released in 2016 as part of the Authority's 'Retail Data Project (RDP)'.

This version (V2) was released on 1 March 2020 following further consultation in 2019 as part of the 'Additional Consumer Choice of Electricity Services (ACCES)' project. This version of the API includes additional fields along with some other enhancements.

'Get by ID' and 'Get by ID list' call changes

New fields released

"PropertyNameOrDescription" (string) in the Address object (called "Property Name" in the registry functional spec)
"InitialElectricallyConnectedDate" (string formatted as YYYY-MM-DD) in the Network object
"TraderSwitchInProgress" (boolean) in the Trader object
"ANZSICcode" (string) in the Trader object
"ProfileCode" (string) in the Trader object
"CertificationExpiryDate" (string formatted as YYYY-MM-DD) in the Meter installation object
"ComponentType" (string) in the Meter component object
"SwitchReadIndicator" (boolean) in the Meter channel object (called "Settlement Indicator" in the registry functional spec, but only indicates if the channel read may be needed in the switch process)

"NetworkParticipantName" (string) in Network object (included via lookup of "NetworkParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)
"TraderParticipantName" (string) in Trader object (included via lookup of "TraderParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)
"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantName" (string) in Metering object (included via lookup of "MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID" field, will repeat the ID if not found)

Moved fields

"ICPIdentifier" moved to first in the return order
"ICPStatus" moved to second in the return order

Renamed fields

"NetworkParticipantID" in the Network object renamed from "Network"
"TraderParticipantID" in the Trader object renamed from "Trader"
"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID" in the Metering object renamed from "MeteringEquipmentProvider"

'Search' call changes

New fields released

"PropertyNameOrDescription" (string) in Address object (called "Property Name" in the registry functional spec)

Gating and response code changes

400 'bad request' code included filtering ICPs not meeting the required format
Messages will be returned in the messages object with the appropriate code where available

'Get by ID' call - successful response sample (The 'Get by ID list' call follows the same format)

{

"ICPIdentifier": "string",

"ICPStatus": 0,

"Address": {

"PropertyNameOrDescription": "string",

"PhysicalAddressUnit": "string",

"PhysicalAddressNumber": "string",

"PhysicalAddressStreet": "string",

"PhysicalAddressSuburb": "string",

"PhysicalAddressTown": "string",

"PhysicalAddressRegion": "string",

"PhysicalAddressPostCode": 0,

"GPS_Easting": 0.086597829994870867,

"GPS_Northing": 0.089592538769447838

},

"Network": {

"NetworkParticipantID": "string",

"NetworkParticipantName": "string",

"POC": "string",

"ReconciliationType": "string",

"InitialElectricallyConnectedDate": "string",

"GenerationCapacity": 0.59222133055867521,

"FuelType": "string",

"DirectBilledStatus": "string"

},

"Pricing": {

"DistributorPriceCategoryCode": "string",

"DistributorLossCategoryCode": "string",

"ChargeableCapacity": 0.74166837179270262,

"DistributorInstallationDetails": "string"

},

"Trader": {

"TraderSwitchInProgress": false,

"TraderParticipantID": "string",

"TraderParticipantName": "string",

"ProfileCode": "string",

"ANZSICcode": "string",

"DailyUnmeteredkWh": "string",

"UnmeteredLoadDetails": "string"

},

"Metering": {

"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantID": "string",

"MeteringEquipmentProviderParticipantName": "string",

"InstallationInformation": [

{

"MeteringInstallationCategory": 0,

"MeteringInstallationType": "string",

"CertificationExpiryDate": "string",

"ComponentInformation": [

{

"ComponentType": "string",

"MeteringComponentSerialNumber": "string",

"MeterType": "string",

"AMIFlag": false,

"CompensationFactor": 0.68670529385750934,

"ChannelInformation": [

{

"MeteringComponentSerialNumber": "string",

"ChannelNumber": 0,

"RegisterContentCode": "string",

"PeriodOfAvailability": "string",

"UnitOfMeasurement": "string",

"EnergyFlowDirection": "string",

"AccumulatorType": "string",

"SwitchReadIndicator": false

}

]

}

]

}

]

},

"Messages": [

"string"

]

}

'Search' call – successful response sample

{

"Address": {

"PropertyNameOrDescription": "string",

"PhysicalAddressStreet": "string",

"PhysicalAddressSuburb": "string",

"PhysicalAddressTown": "string",

"PhysicalAddressRegion": "string",

"PhysicalAddressPostCode": 0,

"GPS_Easting": 0.11158078265068716,

"GPS_Northing": 0.53635229909462989

},

"ICPIdentifier": "string",

"ICPStatus": 0,

"Messages": [

"string"

]

}

Switching summary detailed data request

2019-06-05T23:23:05.0400000

Hi EA, I'm wondering if the Switching Summary dataset could be expanded to the underlying time series data? Currently if selecting an extended period of time the data shows open and close detail against the time period, and not the monthly data across that time period. It's the by-month data that's more relevant. Particularly as for the faster growing challenger brands, the rate numbers shown aren't that meaningful when they're stated off a low opening base for any extended period.

I may be missing something, but I cannot see how the dataset across multiple months can be generated and downloaded in a single instance.

Thanks.

NZTM coordinates for ICPs (GPS coordinates)

2016-06-30T23:06:33.5700000

The registry contains fields to record coordinates of ICPs. Each distributor responsible for ICPs is able to populate these fields and we strongly encourage them to do so. However, populating them is not mandated in the Code.

Some users of the ICP connection data API are keen to utilise this locational information and might expect the information to be available for all ICPs. The following table shows the proportion of ICPs that have these fields populated as at 30 June 2016. It is great to see some distributors leading the way here. These networks provide a good opportunity to prototype any application that uses the API and requires this information.

Geocoded ICPs at 30 June 2016

Guidance for the population of these fields in the registry is provided here and attached.

We also publish related material:

NZTM coordinates for all NSPs (GXPs etc) in the NSP table.
Shapefiles for various network defined regions.

Runtime error on ICP connection data API – 1 Jul 2019

2019-06-30T21:20:23.9870000

ICP connection data API is throwing a Runtime Error; first noticed the issue at 7:43am Monday 1st July 2019.

Can't find a support channel to log this so hopefully this get's picked up soon.

Regards

Ben

Consultation on releasing additional registry fields through the ICP connection data API

2019-04-30T02:23:30.8630000

The Authority is consulting on "Quick wins for increasing access to electricity services" as part of the Additional Consumer Choice of Electricity Services (ACCES) project.

This consultation is seeking input on releasing additional fields from the registry through the ICP connection data API (proposal 3) along with other proposals to enhance the timely sharing of consumption data. If you have views on these issues please take the time to respond to the consultation.

The registry functional specification (available under the download heading) may be a useful reference.

Consultation is open until 11 June 2019.

Missing field 'propertyName' in ICP connection data API

2019-05-17T03:57:38.6070000

I'm currently doing some searches using the EMI APIs but have found that it doesn't return propertyName field like the SOAP request to the electricity registry.
I've converted the SOAP request to JSON for readability.

There are quite a few example of this where the address is the same but the only differentiator is 'propertyName'
With this issue there is no way to know which ICP is correct.

Residential market share data

2019-04-29T23:12:41.8800000

Hi EMI,

I would like to pull Market Share data for residential only. You already have a good market share data, but there is no option to filter Residentials only.

I've tried to use the following parameter but doesn't seem to work:

MarketSegment=Res

I use python to pull the data from your website directly:

var = datetime.datetime.today()
var = var.strftime('%Y%m%d')
url1 = 'https://www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Retail/Download/DataReport/CSV/R_MST_C?DateFrom=20040101&DateTo='+var+'&RegionType=NWK_REPORTING_REGION_DIST&RegionCode=All&_rsdr=ALL&_si=v|4'

F = pd.read_csv(url1, skiprows=12)

Metering configurations by individual metering component

2019-04-09T02:14:29.9070000

Good afternoon,

I was looking at the dataset for December 2018 on Metering Configurations by Distribution Price Cat Code which is giving me the meter register configurations at an ICP level.

Was it possible to get a more detailed breakdown at a Metering Component (meter/device) level? The reason being that typically (for most devices) we would have preset meter configuration templates when doing setup or maintenance inside a retailer or distributor system. And knowing about these in advance would greatly help after switches or metering changes (esp using NMR notifications).

For example, I have picked out the metering configuration file, a 'X-7304-24 X-CN-11 X-UN-24' for which there are 5745 examples nationwide. If this was a single device, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense as you would expect two 30 interval channels each for the corresponding UN and CN read channels.

In terms of using this data for statistical analysis as well as data setup, having this information would be of increased benefit when it comes knowing how to setup ICPs and corresponding meters.

Regards

Zane Khan

Estimated volumes in reconciliation and impact on consumer invoicing when data arrives?

2019-03-17T22:43:46.7530000

Hi,

In the 'Code' are a number of references to meter data estimation as/when HRR data do not arrive. What are retailer obligations when 'actuals' arrive POST customer invoices and reporting (e.g. AV90) being issued? Reporting can be updated to reflect, but are customer invoices re-issued? Thinking here of TOU tariffs that might be altered compared to standardized profiles being used during estimation.

Are there rules that cover this situation?

ICP connection data API is not returning results 24/01/2019 - resolved

2019-01-24T02:29:10.6770000

Unfortunately, the ICP connection data API has encountered an issue and is not returning results.

A restart of the web app has not resolved the issue and further investigation is required. We expect to get to this after 5 pm today.

We apologise for any inconvenience and ask that you bear with us until we can identify and resolve the issue.

What are 'customer withdrawn' switches?

2017-02-20T20:46:43.7970000

What does the 'Customer Withdrawn' column in the Switching Breakdown report represent?

Electricity in New Zealand

2018-09-26T02:07:01.5600000

Have you downloaded your copy of Electricity in New Zealand yet?

The Authority has recently updated its Electricity in New Zealand publication, a comprehensive guide to the electricity sector in New Zealand. It tells the story of the electricity industry in a simple and engaging way and is a valuable resource for training and education.

The updated publication is available to download here: https://www.ea.govt.nz/about-us/media-and-publications/electricity-nz/

Hard copies will be available in the coming weeks. If you would like to request a hard copy please email us at communications@ea.govt.nz, specifying your postal address and the number of copies required.

Time series of switching data including retailer gains/losses etc?

2018-09-05T07:26:22.7830000

Hi,

Is there any easy way to download monthly time series of switching summary in a single file?

thanks

Sector analysis of Distributed Generation for Solar

2018-07-24T22:18:33.8200000

Hi,

I was looking at the distributed generation split for solar and notice that the Commercial + Industrial + SME + Residential don't add up to the total solar connections/generation capacity. Is the SME sector also counted in the residential sector as it appears and why? For all ICPs as of end of June there are 19500 ICP connections and ~ 76 MW. If you add up all the sectors it is 20 325 ICP connections and 84.3MW. The difference being 825 ICPs, the amount of SME connections. How accurate is the SME data? Thanks

ICP connection data API enhancement request

2018-06-05T01:04:06.9370000

I would like to request that the following be added to the ICP Connection Data API

"start date" field added to each section of the response. Eg to indicate the start date of a price, a meter installation etc.
Be able to pass in a date as a paramter and have the ICP configuration for that date returned. In this case an "end date" field would also be useful for historical configurations.

Thanks in advance

Henry

New report on EMI – Residential consumption trends

2018-06-11T23:21:45.5130000

We’ve added a trend report for residential consumption that helps users observe changes in residential energy consumption through time and contrast these trends between regions. The data is monthly resolution collected from EIEP1 files so we are unable to provide any commentary on daily residential profiles or trends at this time. More information on the data and cleaning process is provided with the reports.

Below are some examples of insights that can be made by exploring the data:

Declining national average residential consumption

Estimated total consumption in the residential market remains flat

Increasing Queenstown winter consumption

What does residential demand mean in the context of total demand?

The contribution to total energy demand from residential consumption ranges from 26 per cent in summer to just over 40 per cent in winter months. July 2017 was a new record where the residential market was responsible for 41.6 per cent of energy demand during the month.

Figure 1: Residential market contribution to total energy demand

Combining trend reports with the time comparison feature makes a powerful tool to explore even further

Comparison of daily average consumption each month over the last five years. Try drilling through and changing region type and the region selected in the series filter.

Figure 2: Daily average residential consumption by month, 2013 - 2017

Registered users can subscribe to receive notifications of discussions in categories or with tags that they are interested in. For example, to receive “EMI news” notifications click follow at the top of this page.

Prepaid and low fixed charge contract uptake (2017)

2018-06-11T23:21:11.1930000

Electricity consumers can choose to be supplied from one of many retailers offering a wide range of plans or contracts. We’ve been asked for the latest figures we have on the uptake of low fixed charge and prepaid contracts. The trends observed in the 2016 update have continued.

Prepaid contracts down 10 per cent

At 31 December 2017, 81 per cent of all residential connections had a smart meter installed to measure electricity consumption. One feature enabled through smart meter technology is the ability to offer prepaid contract options. Consumers choose from a wide range of offerings, of which prepaid options are a small subset.

Residential connections supplied through prepaid contracts dropped by 10 per cent to 35,248 during 2017.

At the end of 2017, the residential connections supplied through prepaid contracts represented 2.0 per cent of the residential market. This figure continues to decrease from 2.2 per cent in 2016 and 2.4 per cent in 2015.

Low fixed charge (LFC) contracts up 4.6 per cent

The Electricity (Low Fixed Charge Tariff Option for Domestic Consumers) Regulations 2004 require retailers to offer LFC tariff options to consumers.

Residential connections supplied through LFC contracts increased by 41,892 (or 4.6 per cent) in 2017.

More than half of all residential connections (53.4 per cent) or 962,068 were supplied through an LFC plan with their chosen retailer at 31 December 2017. This figure continues to increase from 51.7 per cent in 2016 and 47.2 per cent in 2015.

Information on trends in the average or median residential consumption is available.

New reports on EMI – Entry and exit in the retail market and consumer choice map and league table

2018-04-05T23:05:28.9830000

Entry and exit

Ever wondered how many retailers have entered the market over the last year, the last five years? What about those that have exited? Perhaps you're only interested in who's entering and exiting the region where you live?

Barriers to entry and exit impact market dynamics. Monitoring the entry and exit of firms in the retail market, therefore, enables insights to be drawn about these barriers, and market performance more generally. We've added a report that tracks entry and exit of parent companies, traders, and brands in the retail electricity market. The retail market has seen a significant number of new retailers begin operations, with 22 retail parent companies entering since the beginning of 2013 (and three exiting). This represents a net increase of 19 retailers, up 135 per cent on the 2013 numbers. Some of these companies are very small and may only operate locally, while others are challenging competitors across the whole country.

Entry and exit of retail parent companies, 2013 -2017

Consumer choice map

Consumer choice of electricity supplier continues to grow across the country as new retailers enter and retail brands are established to reach niche consumers. At the end of 2017, there were 48 retail brands supplying consumers in New Zealand. Within a region and/or market segment we require an entity to serve more than three ICPs to count in these statistics. Auckland consumers have the greatest choice with 35 brands available. To see which retail brands are operating take a look at the market share snapshot.

Consumer choice of retail brands, 2013, 2015, 2017

Consumer choice league table

We’ve also presented the same information from the maps above in a league table which highlights the change across the year. Hover over the bars and change markers for more information.

Consumer choice of retail parent companies, 2017

Also, see new dashboard - increasing consumer choice.

New dashboard on EMI – Increasing consumer choice

2018-04-05T23:05:18.1270000

Leveraging off the new consumer choice reports released we’ve added a retail dashboard highlighting the changes in choice that have occurred both through time and across the country.

Registered users are able to create their own dashboards on EMI. More information is available here.

Request for one-month renewable energy generation and load data

2018-03-12T21:01:29.7000000

I’m doing research on the EV Charging Station Sizing. For the initial work, we are working on the energy management system (EMS) so we need one-month solar/Wind energy generation and a specific building (Auckland University of Technology) data.

I will really appreciate if anyone can guide me in finding the generation and load data.

Thanks

Best Regards,

Arif Rizvi

Vice-Chancellor's Doctoral Scholar

Auckland University of Technology,

Auckland, New Zealand.

HP: +64275314004

Updated EMI report – Residential price change trends report (cost index)

2018-02-21T04:10:11.2270000

The residential price change trends report has been updated for recent quarters. In addition, we’ve made a couple of small enhancements to the report.

There is now a parameter that allows users to shift the base date of the index.
An additional NZIER cost index option is available - the long-term energy outlook. This version of the cost index attempts to remove the effect of the current year’s hydrology situation by excluding settlement prices for futures contracts from the preceding four quarters. This option is not shown by default but is available in the series filter parameter.

API management policy change - 'Get by id list' calls to the ICP connection data API reduced

2018-01-22T22:33:52.0970000

We've reduced the calls using the 'Get by id list' call from 20 to 10 per minute due to the high load on the registry back-end infrastructure. Users regularly querying lists of ICPs may need to adjust their scripts to accommodate the changes.

New reports on EMI – Switching and market structure league tables

2018-01-18T21:01:19.4100000

We’ve released two more league table reports summarising annual changes in retail market activity.

Switching league table

2017 saw a new record for total switches. This report provides comparative measures across regions and the change on the previous year. New metrics are introduced that provide more information on what is driving the switching numbers. The new information is a distinct switch measure and a distinct switch rate measure. For example, the distinct switch rate over the last five years tells us that 54.3 per cent of connections have changed supplier one or more times. It is these connections that have generated more than 2 million switches over this time period.

Nationally, the distinct switch rate over 2017 was 17.9 per cent a percentage increase of 4 per cent on 2016.

Distinct switch rate across the regions, 2017

Also, see new dashboards released.

Market concentration league table

Less concentrated markets deliver more competitive outcomes. We use the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and concentration ratios to measure market concentration. No new information is provided in this report. It simply summarises the concentration measure and annual change in the measure making it easy to see which direction things are heading and where changes are occurring most rapidly.

In 2017 all regions observed a drop in the HHI, with the Gisborne region having the lowest concentration by this measure as well as the highest percentage reduction over the year.

Regional market concentration measured by HHI, 2017

In regional markets, kiwi consumers will, on average, see their largest local retailer with a market share of 40.2 per cent. This measure declined at a rate 4.5 per cent in 2017; a similar rate to the last couple of years.

As with all league table reports users can hover over the bars or change numbers (on the right-hand side of the table) to expose a tooltip and gain more insight into the differences over the year. Even more information is available on the data tab.

Also, see new dashboards released.

New dashboards on EMI – Annual switching activity summary and changes in market structure

2018-01-18T21:01:11.7800000

Leveraging off the new league tables released, we’ve added two new retail dashboards that provide an overview of annual changes.

Annual switching activity summary

This dashboard highlights various views of the switching league table that show annual activity using a range of measures.

Residential saving numbers (the last two reports on the dashboard) aren’t yet available for 2017, however, earlier years are available.

Annual changes in market structure

This dashboard highlights the change in the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), and the CR4 and CR1 measures of concentration in the retail market using both a league table and map. This allows users to quickly zero in of where the big changes occurred across the year.

Registered users are able to create their own dashboards on EMI. More information is available here.

New datasets on EMI – Information on types of connections and capacity to consume electricity

2017-12-20T23:43:25.4300000

Information on the types of use and capacity to consume electricity assists analysts studying consumer types and their locations in networks. The mapping from network regions to meshblocks supports the use of census data to gain further insights about electricity consumers. We’ve been asked to provide this data to enhance studies of the value of lost load (VOLL).

Meter categories by level one ANZSIC codes

Mapping of network reporting regions and root NSPs to Statistics NZ 2013 meshblocks

New reports on EMI – Residential savings and consumption league tables

2017-08-14T00:35:08.4370000

Residential consumption and savings figures have been updated for 2016. League tables offer users a simple view ranking the difference amongst regions and highlighting the change on the previous year.

The tool tip surfaced by hovering over the data points (or clicking the data on a mobile device) provides additional information about the change in rank or value on the previous year.

Figure 1: Additional information in the tool tip

Figure 2 shows the average residential savings for regional council regions. Bay of Plenty and Marlborough consumers stood to save more than other regions by switching retailers in 2016. Notes accompanying each report explain the assumptions in this analysis.

Figure 2: Average residential savings, 2016

Figure 3 shows the average residential consumption by regional council regions in 2016 and the change from 2015. Other parameters allow users to change the region types or view the totals and change in total by regions.

Figure 3: Average residential consumption, 2016

EMI reports updated – Residential savings and consumption figures released (2016)

2017-08-14T00:34:24.4300000

Residential savings

Estimated residential average savings figures for 2016 were $164 per residential connection or $291 million in total. These figures estimate the average savings available across all residential consumers if they had switched to the lowest priced generally available plan each month.

The average national figure dropped about $10 from 2015 as the market responded with consumers switching and retailers changing relative prices to their competitors within the regional markets.

Residential savings are available in the following reports:

Figure 1: Residential average savings by network area, 2016

Residential consumption

2016 had a warmer than usual start to winter, contributing to a 1.7 per cent decrease in average residential consumption over 2015. Total residential consumption was one per cent down on 2015 and accounts for just over 30 per cent of total demand.

Residential consumption is reported in the following reports:

Figure 2: Distribution of annual residential consumption, 2016

Prepaid and low fixed charge contract uptake (2016)

2017-08-13T22:41:03.8270000

Electricity consumers can choose to be supplied from one of many retailers offering a wide range in plans or contracts. We’ve been asked for the latest figures we have on the uptake of low fixed charge and prepaid contracts.

Prepaid contracts

Approximately 80 per cent of all residential connections today have a smart meter installed to measure electricity consumption. One feature enabled through smart meter technology is the ability to offer prepaid contract options. Consumers choose from a wide range of offerings, of which pre-paid options are a small subset.

Residential connections supplied through prepaid contracts dropped by 8 percent to 39,764 during 2016. At the end of 2016, the residential connections supplied through prepaid contracts represented 2.2 per cent of the residential market.

Low fixed charge (LFC) contracts

The Electricity (Low Fixed Charge Tariff Option for Domestic Consumers) Regulations 2004 require retailers to offer LFC tariff options to consumers.

Residential connections supplied through LFC contracts increased by 88,551 (or 10.6 per cent) in 2016. More than half of all residential connections (51.7 per cent) or 920,200 were supplied through an LCF plan with their chosen retailer at 31 December 2016. In 2015 this figure was 47.2 per cent.

Lightning Lab Electric Innovation Challenge winners

2017-04-17T22:29:22.0530000

Congratulations to emhLabs, the overall winners of the Lightning Lab Electric Innovation Challenge.

The team developed an algorithm that allows them to provide a home energy efficiency rating for a home without undertaking a site visit.

Click here to read more about the other winners and their ideas.

Questions on Counties Power sample data

2017-03-14T21:57:26.3930000

Hi there,

With the recent release of the sample data for Counties Power (http://www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Datasets/Supplementary_information/2017), I have some quick questions. From the spreadsheet (20170313_Consumption_profiles.xlsm) it states:

The data is a subset of the full Counties Power network - in this case is provided from one substation (approx 20% of the total network)

Data provided included details of Feeders, Transformers, ICPs, Meters & Consumption - anonymised Looking at the file

Looking at the file 20170313_tx_seas_time_profile.csv, I can see about 71 transformer IDs (e.g. T000017, T004021 etc.).

1. Do we Are you able to say what the name/identifier of the substation was that these feeders/transformers are linked to?

I can see that Feeders are potentially linked to multiple transformers (e.g. from 20170313_tx_seas_time_profile.csv) T000030,F000060 T000082,F000060

2. If so how do feeders, transformers link back to the NSP or POC code as indicated in the file 20170314_Network_supply_points_table.csv (http://www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Datasets/Wholesale/Reconciliation/Network_supply_points_table)?

3. Is the relationship as follows? NSP (i.e. Substation) > Feeder > Transformer > ICP

Thanks,

David

What does the retailer switching rate (gains and losses) in switching summary report mean?

2017-02-20T20:55:14.3700000

In the Switching Summary report, what do the gains and losses and net percentages mean? What are they a percentage of? They numbers do not appear to be a percentage of the retailers' ICPs for that month or the prior month.

Why do switching statistics not align with changes in market share?

2017-02-20T20:44:47.8570000

There is usually a small difference between the total change in ICPs for a month, and the net gains from the switching statistics. Can anyone explain why this is?

How are new connections (ICPs) represented in switching numbers?

2017-02-20T20:48:39.1270000

In the NZ-wide switching statistics, why does total gains always equal total losses? What about new connections or disconnections?

Have you entered the Lightning Lab Electric Innovation Challenge?

2017-02-03T01:16:33.1730000

Creative HQ has partnered with Callaghan Innovation for the Lightning Lab Electric Innovation Challenge, which is open until 20 March 2017.

It’s a competition for ideas pushing boundaries in how consumers and businesses use, manage, distribute, transmit, and generate electricity.

The Authority is supporting the challenge and you’re likely to see challenge-related questions and answers on the EMI forum over the coming weeks.

Make sure you subscribe to the ‘Lightning Lab’ tag so that you can follow the discussion and learnings.

EMI report updated – Market share trends report now includes ability to group retailers

2016-10-03T02:10:30.2100000

We’ve tweaked the market share trends report to include a parameter allowing users to easily group retail parent company market shares. Comparisons can be made between the 4 or 5 largest incumbent retailers and the remainder of the market.

A couple of examples are:

The national market share held by the 5 largest incumbent retailers continues to fall dropping by over 1 per cent in the last year to 91 per cent.

National market share held by the 5 largest incumbent retailers and others

The combined share of smaller retailers (those outside the 5 largest incumbents) has just overtaken Mercury's market share in the South Inland.

South Island market share by parent company

Any available ICP level consumption data for research purposes?

2016-09-15T01:29:59.5070000

Hi,

I would like to inquire if there are any databases or datasets having ICP level load consumption available for research purposes? The data doesn't necessarily have to have ICP numbers listed. The sole purpose is to use ICP level consumption data for power studies rather than studying a specific individual's consumption.

regards,

Arif

A standard format for retail price schedules – what are your thoughts on the format?

2016-06-27T21:24:14.7270000

We have amended the Code to require retailers to provide information about their generally available retail tariff plans to any person that requests them. The Code amendment took effect on 1 February 2016.

However, the Code does not specify the format or method a retailer may use to provide this information. Our consultation paper presents a draft file format for use by retailers and seeks feedback from interested parties. The use of the file format is voluntary. The format is an addition to the current suite of industry EIEPs and has been titled EIEP 14.
Submissions close at 5 pm on Tuesday, 9 August 2016.

Consultation paper

Release dates for retail reports

2016-08-11T23:12:43.8600000

I saw in the report notes on the website that July data will be released on 13^th August 2016. Given this is a Saturday I was wondering if the data will be released today, on Saturday or on Monday?

Change to enable more access to consumer electricity data

2016-05-22T21:00:47.5070000

From 1 February, electricity retailers must provide electricity consumption data to consumers or their authorised agents. Retailers must also provide all generally available pricing plans to anyone who requests them.

In addition, the Authority has now made it possible for more parties to access information about their electricity meters and connection arrangements through a web portal. This information will assist authorised agents to consider only tariffs that are relevant to the customer's connection arrangements.

The changes mean consumers can have better information to make more informed decisions about what electricity plan will work best for them.

The Authority expects the changes will help consumers to be more confident about the savings they can make from price offers and the choices available. This initiative should put even more competitive pressure on electricity retailers to offer better and more innovative deals.

For more information please see our consumer information pages

Your power data in your hands

C&I market characteristics

2016-07-21T05:14:30.1170000

I am trying to get a handle on what the size (customer numbers) of the NZ C&I market is.

I have determined the volume is roughly 17,000MWh (ex Tiwai and SME customers).

Information available online refers to ICPs - 300,000 infact. Which seems far too many.

Even the number of HHR meters from the meter registry characterised as Commercial or Industrial is 150,000 which leads to:

C&I HHR Meters^	Average
96,389	98.0	MWh.pa
60,658	203.6	MWh.pa

(Commercial top Industrial bottom) and is still too small.

Is there a way to determine the ACTIVE meters in the market?

EMI reports updated – Switching reports now include switch types (trader, move-in, half-hour)

2016-05-30T21:35:11.4770000

We’ve augmented the EMI website's switching reports to include a filter on switch types. This enhancement provides further insight into the switching activity that takes place in the retail electricity market.

The three switch types are ‘trader’, ‘move-in’ and ‘half-hour’. Trader switches follow the switch process that applies when the customer of an electricity retailer (customer) has an existing contract with the losing trader at the ICP. Move-in switches follow the switch process that applies when the customer is new to an ICP. Half-hour switches are switches of ICPs with larger metering categories. More information is available in the report notes.

The augmented retail reports are: switching trends, switching breakdown, switching summary, and relative switching.

Looking at the switching trends report we observe the following:

Trader switches peaked in 2011 when the What’s My Number campaign began and show a strong seasonal correlation to the winter months, which is also when this campaign runs.
Move-in switches have steadily increased and are the main contributor to total switching increasing over time. These results align with our surveys which show that moving house prompts a residential customer to consider their electricity supply choices. An increasingly competitive market structure underpins this increase, as do customers with both awareness and increased choice. Switches are a count of traders supplying ICPs changing, not customers changing traders. Some move-in switches will be loyal customers who decide to sign up with their previous supplier at their new ICP.

Examples of insights that can be drawn from the augmented reports are highlighted at the following links:

National comparison of switch type trends (www.emi.ea.govt.nz/r/3jbzt)

Relative move-in switches in the main centres (www.emi.ea.govt.nz/r/zow2v)

The performance of the residential electricity market in 2015 - review published

2016-07-05T01:00:35.1130000

We have released a publication with information and commentary on the performance of the residential electricity market in 2015.

The publication is fully digital, allowing readers to share links, download images, customise displays by changing parameters, and access the underlying data.

The publication covers:

national electricity switching rates and the estimated potential savings available to consumers in different regions
residential electricity use, including consumption levels by region and information about solar installation rates
information about the number of retailers available in different regions
information on residential electricity pricing and market structure changes
Publication

Creating EIEP13C .csv file

2016-06-22T23:29:04.1800000

Hi all,

I am seeking to submit an EIEP13C request for ICP meter data to a retailer via the EIEP Transfer Hub. This will request EIEP13A and EIEP13B files to be returned (preferably sent by email).

Does anyone know if there are examples of the EIEP13C filetype available?

I have read the specification for EIEP13C located on EA website (link to page) and also Registry Functional Specification which has been somewhat helpful with the file naming requirements, butwhat would be really useful is an example of an EIEP13C request CSV file, and the EIEP13A and EIEP13B responses.

Thanks for your help. Steep learning curve for the uninitiated.

Cheers,

Nathan

Care needed when interpreting the trend in solar connections at the moment

2016-06-14T03:59:44.0500000

Have you noticed that the national trend in ICPs with solar connections seems to have flattened off recently?

It appears that one network participant has made an error with the population of the fields they are responsible for in the registry. They are aware of this situation and we hope to have this resolved soon.