Cortexo and Our Energy: Getting it together
Why we’re collaborating and an open invitation to join us
Our Energy and Cortexo believe that Aotearoa New Zealand’s electricity industry (and energy sector generally) is not moving fast enough to adapt to changes demanded by customers and the planet.
Even without the obvious need to reduce carbon which requires significant electrification, there is snail-pace acceptance of an electricity supply chain that is turning inside out, one plug point at a time. The energy system of the future will be electric and led by customers, not companies. Households and businesses will be power stations; they will provide flexibility and ancillary services to the market; and, from a market point of view, they will decide who they share or trade their energy with.
Our Energy and Cortexo are separate, New Zealand owned and operated companies, which have a common view of where beneficial change can occur in the energy sector. We are very happy to be joined by others.
We believe that it’s time for doing, as time has run out
The near deliberate glacial progress shown by the entire industry from regulators to participants is hampering the ability of our people, businesses and communities to even just get on the right track to decarbonisation.
So what are we doing?
We are promoting and helping coordinate a new approach to how electricity services can be provided to an individual household or business connection (the Multiple Trading Relationships (MTR) project is managed by Ara Ake and supported by the Electricity Authority).
We have jointly submitted to the Climate Change Commission and the Commerce Commission on energy and flexibility market issues, as well as the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s work on the establishment of a Consumer Data Right.
We have together penned a series of articles throughout 2021 about the need for a clear plan around how our industry is responding (or not) to the need for rapid electrification to meet our zero carbon goals.
We are participating with our industry colleagues to create what we aim to have fully emerge in the future as a ‘flexibility services’ market.
Here’s what Our Energy does
Our Energy is the designer and developer of Lemonade, an online platform that provides an easy way for people and communities to buy, sell and gift clean, local energy and enables flexibility to be broadcast and procured by local networks, linking supplier and customer needs. Its platform increases and rewards consciousness of a flexible electricity system that is cheaper and cleaner for all, through matching of local supply and demand. The platform is currently used to support Raglan Local Energy and project(s) under MBIE’s Renewable Energy on Māori Housing Fund, as well as a variety of other projects around the country.
Here’s what Cortexo is all about
Cortexo is a cloud platform service operating in front of the meter providing network services and behind the meter providing consumer services. For example, Cortexo provides the IoT (Internet of things) platform for low voltage monitoring hardware used by several electricity distribution companies as well as providing a meter data and energy portal service to the NZ Ministry of Education. Cortexo is extending its services to enable transmission and distribution networks to interact with available distributed energy resources by utilising international open standards such as IEC 62746 (openADR 2.0b).