Ara Ake National Flex Discovery Fund

Overview

New Zealand’s transition to renewable electricity requires more than just new generation — it needs smarter, more flexible ways of managing supply and demand.

Flexible energy resources like batteries, electric vehicles, and smart appliances can help us reduce peak demand, avoid costly infrastructure upgrades, and enable consumers to play an active role in our electricity system.

But for flexibility to deliver on its promise, it must first be discoverable. Right now, much of New Zealand’s flexibility is invisible to electricity networks, the System Operator, and market participants — and therefore remains unused.

That’s why Ara Ake has launched the National Flex Discovery Fund — to support flexible service providers (FSPs) in becoming visible to the electricity system and possible buyers, and to accelerate the scale and reliability of flexible energy resources.

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What the National Flex Discovery Fund offers

The Fund offers targeted grant funding to:

• Help flexibility providers become discoverable on an open-access flexibility platform
• Support providers already visible on such platforms to scale or enhance the capacity or reliability of their flexibility resource

This grant round is focused on reducing the barriers that FSPs — especially small and emerging innovators — face in participating in flexibility markets. These barriers include software integration, system testing, and customer engagement.

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Why this matters

Ara Ake recently commissioned a white paper that explored the barriers to flexibility visibility in Aotearoa. It found that while innovation is progressing, flexible resources remain largely under utilised.

• Read the Flexibility White Paper

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Who should apply

We’re looking to empower flexibility service providers large and small who:

• Are not yet visible to electricity market participants — and
• Are already visible on an open-access platform but looking to enhance their flexibility offering

A flexibility service provider is any business that can aggregate and remotely manage (shape or shift) electrical load or distributed generation in response to external signals (such as prices). This might also be referred to as a DER aggregator.

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What’s an open access platform?

This is a platform that provides visibility of flexible resources to potential buyers, such as the System Operator or electricity distribution networks. It's open for anyone to use and is built on a shared way of communicating, which makes it easier for different systems to work together. This helps lower costs for customers in the end.

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Applications are now closed

• Grant eligibility and assessment criteria.

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Key Dates

- Applications open: 22 May 2025
- Webinar about the Fund: 30 May 2025.  
- Applications Close: Monday 23 June, 5pm.
- Funding Decisions Announced: July 2025
If you have any questions about the Fund or application process, contact us at: info@araake.co.nz