Issues Presented by Emerging Technologies for New Zealand Electricity Sector Regulation – A High-Level Overview
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Meade, Richard
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2019
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Abstract
- This report provides a high-level discussion of how emerging technologies in the New Zealand electricity sector affects how that sector should be regulated. It summarises and extends the discussion of these issues provided in a separate and more wide-ranging report prepared by the author.1 In this report, as in that report, it is assumed that regulation seeks to serve the long-term interest of electricity consumers. However, while the earlier report looked across all of the electricity sector, this report focuses particularly on electricity distribution. 2. The emerging technologies considered in this report include, but are not limited to: 2.1. Specific electricity sector technologies – including photo-voltaic solar panels (PVs) and electrical storage (e.g. home-level batteries), home energy management systems (HEMS), and smart meters; and 2.2. Other technologies potentially impacting on electricity sectors – e.g. plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), communications technologies (e.g. 5G mobile), or internet-of-things (IoT) technologies that produce or consume electricity. 3. Technologies that can produce electricity at a small-user level, or within local electricity distribution networks, are collectively referred to as distributed energy resources (DERs). As well as PVs, these include batteries, which “produce” electricity by discharging it, and hence also some types of EVs (i.e. those with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability, whose batteries can discharge electricity as well as store it for motive use). 4. The main themes addressed in this report include: 4.1. Factors affecting the realisation of emerging technologies’ benefits – social impacts of private choices, coordination issues and path dependencies, and the importance of ownership; 4.2. The changing nature of electricity consumers – the rise of prosumerism, personalisation, and waterbed effects; 4.3. The changing nature of electricity distribution networks – bi-directional flows, dynamism, and decentralisation/automation; and 4.4. The generally changing nature of electricity regulation – shared regulatory issues and pan-sectoralism, internationalisation, and forbearance. 5. These themes are discussed in turn in the following sections. The regulatory implications of each theme are summarised at the conclusion of each section, while the final section draws together some general regulatory implications.
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Industry economics and industrial organisation
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Meade, R, Issues Presented by Emerging Technologies for New Zealand Electricity Sector Regulation – A High-Level Overview, 2019