Load management information
Why we manage load
Like roads, electricity networks experience “rush hours” where loading levels peak and capacity is fully utilised. Orion's rush hours typically occur on cold winter mornings when residential water heating load conicides with the start of the business day, and again on cold evenings when people arrive home from work and turn on their lights, heaters, and cook their evening meal. On the other hand, the peak loads on our rural network occur during summer months because of the high levels of irrigation pumps connected to our network.
One solution to cope with these relatively short periods of high loading is to expand our network's capacity - much like making roads bigger to handle more traffic. But this is very expensive, especially given that the additional capacity is not needed 98% of the time, and would mean we would have to increase our prices to cover costs. We think it makes better sense to promote other cheaper options, such as load management.
How we manage load
We operate a ripple signalling system that allows us to send signals through the electricity network to ripple receivers at customers’ premises. We provide a number of different signals to manage load in different ways:
- Our peak control signals are sent out only when they are needed - when load is peaking. Ripple receivers on peak channels switch off appliances (mainly hot water cylinders) to help reduce the peak. We start switching the peak channels back on as soon as load levels start to fall and we aim to keep the duration of control as short as possible to prevent any noticeable effects on customers' hot water supply.
- Our fixed time control signals are sent out every day, turning appliances on (mainly hot water cylinders and night store heaters) at times when our loading levels are always low. This “fixed time control” permanently shifts load away from the day time periods when peaks occur.
- Our pricing signals provide incentives that reward retailers' customers who lower the amount of electricity they consume during our high priced peak period. We provide ripple signals to tell customers that it's a peak period so that they can reduce their load and reduce their charges – this arrangement is more useful for larger business connections with special half-hour interval metering that records the reduced loading level during the peak period. We operate a separate set of pricing signals for our major customers and many of these customers lower their load, and use backup generation, to lower their electricity charges during our high priced peak loading periods (refer to application of delivery prices for more details).
Most people install ripple receivers to take advantage of the cheaper pricing plans that are available, and, for electric water heating, it’s mandatory to install and maintain a ripple receiver. There’s a range of channel options available to meet all requirements - refer to Ripple relays for water heating and our Ripple control channel summary for details.
You can also view our pricing guide for more information on how we price, or our ripple signal guide for technical details on the use of our ripple signals, including details of our night load switching times.
View more information on:
Load management for general connections
- for retailers and general connections - how we manage load, the load management dashboard, what triggers peak periods, how we notify peak periods, peak period current status, peak period history
Load management for major connections
- for major connections - how we manage load, the load management dashboard, what triggers control periods, how we notify control periods, control period current status, control period history
Load management dashboard
- current loading status for, daily load management summary, total system load, residential water-heating service performance, pricing periods history
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