Mr. Rodney Doyle:

There are a few things on the demand side. We have the capability to engage with our large-demand customers who are connected and during times of tightness on the system to ask them to moderate their power usage when they can then utilise on-site generation that they have. The CRU consultation on data centres and other large demand sites actually now requires that these large units be located closer to the centres of demand, that they have the availability of on-site generation and that they have the flexibility to reduce their demand during times of tightness. Therefore, we already have schemes in place to allow us to that, working with the large-demand customers.

We have a very active demand side unit participation in our electricity market. They bid into the market as if they are another generator. They offer to provide a reduction in the available power or in some instances to bring on the generation that is on site. If they can offer us this reduction in power, that is less power we need to supply.

In the modelling we do, we factor in restrictions on the run hours and the environmental requirements that any of the units will have for how they run on the system. That is factored into our estimates of what types of units the system will need. That is factored into our modelling when preparing our generation forecast statements.