Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Margaret Cooney: Octopus Energy COO on the report finding that shifting electricity use to off-peak hours could save billions

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Margaret Cooney: Octopus Energy COO on the report finding that shifting electricity use to off-peak hours could save billions · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And you report out this morning reckons. Shifting to more
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: off peak electricity use could wipe three billion bucks a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: year off our power bills collectively. Of course, the Energy
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Efficiency and Conservation Authority found a quarter of on peak
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of peak demand. I should say this is like your
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: winter evenings could be moved to quieter times using existing
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: technology without changing how we live and work. Sounds great.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Margaret Koney is Octopus Energy Chief operating officer, joins me
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: this morning, Margaret, good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: So how does this work? Am I going to shift?
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  Speaker 1: Do I do my instead of doing my washing in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the evening, do it during the day or what are
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  Speaker 1: we talking about here?
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  Speaker 2: There's essentially so as a customer, you would be shifting
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  Speaker 2: your energy usage to those times when it's hopefully when
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  Speaker 2: it should be cheaper for you as a customer. And
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  Speaker 2: so that might mean that rather than putting the dishwasher
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: around at seven o'clock at night, when it's still there's
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: still a lot of demand on the gridge, put the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: timer on at that point and the dishwasher goes on
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  Speaker 2: at say eleven, when there's much less pressure on the
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  Speaker 2: electricity grid. And one of the great things about that
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  Speaker 2: is that one that it will save It will help
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  Speaker 2: us a always having to invest in really expensive infrastructure.
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  Speaker 2: It will save consummans money. And the other thing is
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  Speaker 2: it will help us into great more energy users and
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  Speaker 2: more renewables into the system much more quickly, because one
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  Speaker 2: of the quite interesting things is most of the time
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  Speaker 2: that there is lots of available bandwidth essentially on our
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  Speaker 2: electricity system, apart from in those peak times at the morning,
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  Speaker 2: in the morning around breakfast, and in the evening around
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  Speaker 2: dinner time. Outside of those times, we've got lots of
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  Speaker 2: opportunity to shift usage around and yeah, grow out grow
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  Speaker 2: our usage of electricity, which should be good for consumers
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  Speaker 2: and businesses.
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  Speaker 1: If we all start delaying our dishwashers till eleven PM
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  Speaker 1: and they all go on eleven pm, do we not
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  Speaker 1: create a new peak? You know, many peaks.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good point. You can soften the peak. But
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  Speaker 2: one of the things that starting to become available, and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: we make this available for consumers with new evs, is
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  Speaker 2: that we can actually directly manage when when some appliances
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  Speaker 2: go on so in return for a further discount, consumers
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  Speaker 2: if they link the EV and this could be a
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  Speaker 2: heat pump or hot water system. We can then select
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  Speaker 2: that when that appliants goes on within the limits that
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  Speaker 2: the customer sets us around what they need, and that
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  Speaker 2: would avoid that convergence thing that you're talking about. But
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  Speaker 2: in the short term that's not a problem for New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: Just shifting out of the peak is what we should
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  Speaker 2: be aiming for immediately.
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  Speaker 1: So you do octopus, you would control you'd be able
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  Speaker 1: to turn on my EV charger or turn on my
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  Speaker 1: washing machine or whatever at a certain time if I
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  Speaker 1: give you permission.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually already control about ten percent of the
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  Speaker 2: UK's event that technology is there. It's getting much better.
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  Speaker 2: Lots of the plants manufacturers, even Fisher and Piper locally
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  Speaker 2: investing lots of effort in trying to work out how
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  Speaker 2: they can make their applants is more interoperable and speak
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  Speaker 2: with there with the energy companies in the market system.
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  Speaker 2: So this is a space where technology is moving so
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  Speaker 2: quickly and there is a huge amount of potential benefit
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: for are consumers directly but also New Zealand. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's one of the spaces that really excites me as
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  Speaker 2: someone in the industry.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's one of those cases where I would
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  Speaker 1: be more than happy for you to take over. And
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  Speaker 1: you know you do the maths, you do the hard work,
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  Speaker 1: and I will just get a cheaper power bill. Thank
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you very much, Margaret Kearney, appreciate your time. Octopus Energy
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  Speaker 1: Chief Operating Opposite. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
• 4:28
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• 4:32
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