AWARDS FINALIST: PowerNet – A high-trust distributor proven under pressure
12 Aug 2026PowerNet's handling of the unprecedented windstorm that hit Southland and Otago in October strengthened its relationships with customers and communities, positioning it as a "trusted, resilient and community-centred electricity distributor," it says. The 23 October storm became the largest outage in PowerNet's history, leaving more than 50,000 customers without electricity at peak impact. The storm also "highlighted both strengths and system constraints" in its handling of large-scale emergency events.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Alpine Energy – FullyCharged
11 Aug 2026Alpine Energy's FullyCharged programme recognises that well-being is essential to safe performance in a safety-critical industry. Its employees work in environments where physical demands, cognitive load, and psychological pressures can affect decision-making and safety performance, making well-being a safety and operational issue, Alpine says.
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You cannot electrify a country on spreadsheets
11 Aug 2026New Zealand will electrify at the speed of its worst data. By Gladstone Brohier, Product General Manager, TechnologyOne Tonight, a new heat pump, a fast charger and an electrified dairy shed will draw power from the same feeder. None of them existed when that feeder was designed. Together they are exactly the future this country has committed to.
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AWARDS FINALIST: New Zealand Steel – The New Zealand Steel Electric Arc Furnace - securing the future of steel making, a strategic asset for NZ
10 Aug 2026New Zealand Steel has started making some of the world's lowest-carbon steel, using an electric arc furnace at its Glenbrook mill. The country's sole producer of flat rolled steel products has just achieved first commercial production from the new furnace after breaking ground on the $300 million project in June 2024. The company says the furnace cuts annual greenhouse gas emissions from Glenbrook by more than 45 per cent and secures the future of the domestic steel industry.
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AWARDS FINALIST: BraveTrace – NZES: Proof that powers decarbonisation
7 Aug 2026BraveTrace is turning renewable energy claims into proven climate action, with its renewable energy certification system supporting new renewable generation investment and underpinning verifiable emissions reporting. The New Zealand Energy Certificate System supports renewable generation, returning additional proceeds to renewable asset operators and developers to support investment signals for new renewable build and repowering.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Bluecurrent – Well-being at Bluecurrent: From vision to visible action
6 Aug 2026Bluecurrent has integrated psychosocial risk management into its core health and safety framework as part of a company-wide wellbeing strategy to build a workplace culture that supports its growing workforce and expansion in Australia. The firm was established in 2023 when Vector sold half its metering business to Queensland Government-owned investment firm QIC.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Orion – Ubuntu Programme: Enabling the workforce of tomorrow
5 Aug 2026Orion is meeting the challenge of building its future workforce for the energy transition head-on with initiatives aimed at getting more people from a wider range of backgrounds interested in the energy industry and ensuring it retains its workforce once it attracts them. With issues already arising in finding and attracting experienced workers and new entrants in New Zealand and globally, the company says it views workforce diversity and inclusion as essential to meeting the future skills requirements of a reliable, resilient and decarbonised electricity system.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Transpower – Space weather - from invisible risk to national resilience
30 Jul 2026Transpower and the Solar Tsunamis Endeavour Programme have developed a proven strategy to manage the "invisible threat" of space weather, which has paid off across multiple geomagnetic storms in the past two years. Coronal mass ejections - massive clouds of plasma that explode from the sun into space - can trigger temporary disturbances called geomagnetic storms if directed at Earth.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Northpower's Brown 'delivering in the real world'
28 Jul 2026Northpower engineering and delivery general manager Shaun Brown is good at bridging the gap between complex engineering theory and practical real-world delivery. It's a skill that's stood him in good stead over the decade or so since he joined the Northland distributor and infrastructure company as an engineering graduate from Canterbury University. And it's prompted the firm to nominate Brown for Young Energy Professional of the Year in this year's Energy Excellence Awards.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Woolworths New Zealand – Predictive Power: Scaling AI-driven decarbonisation across New Zealand
27 Jul 2026Woolworths New Zealand expects to save more than $3 million a year through an analytics-driven energy management programme that uses artificial intelligence and predictive modelling to optimise refrigeration, lighting, and HVAC systems across its supermarket network. The company has partnered with Bueno Analytics to replace a largely reactive maintenance model with a centralised Energy Management Centre that continuously monitors store performance and prioritises maintenance interventions across the portfolio.
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