AWARDS FINALIST: Contact Energy – Tauhara: renewable power and resilience
30 Jul 2025Contact Energy's $924 million Tauhara power station delivers 174 megawatts of baseload renewable energy - enough to power more than 200,000 homes and meet 3.5 per cent of the nation's electricity supply. It features the world's largest single-shaft geothermal turbine, spinning at 3000 revolutions per minute, and was built with the support of 4000 people from 26 countries, contributing 2.65 million work hours.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Powerco – collaborating for a successful transition
28 Jul 2025Powerco says a series of initiatives during the past year demonstrate its commitment to innovation and its transition to a distribution system operator role. The company's installation of pole-mounted batteries in Tauranga's Greerton is the country's first and will help improve power quality and meet peak demand, while reducing the need for costly infrastructure upgrades. It is also unlocking network flexibility through collaboration with electricity retailers.
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AWARDS FINALIST: The Lines Company – redefining workplace well-being
25 Jul 2025The Lines Company says its focus on staff well-being has transformed the company's culture, lowered accident rates and halved recruitment times. The Te Kuiti-based firm says it can't achieve its vision to be the King Country's favourite company without a happy, engaged workforce doing their best for their customers. It wants people to want to work for it, and that is important in getting and keeping technical specialists in a region distant from major centres.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Westpower – innovation, reliability, and sustainability
24 Jul 2025Westpower says it is investing in new technology and capability to improve the reliability of its distribution service and to help the country meet its electrification and decarbonisation targets. The firm, based on the South Island's challenging West Coast, now employs 350 people in seven locations across the wider ElectroNet Group, which undertakes network and generation ownership and also includes an electrical engineering consultancy and a contracting arm.
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AWARDS FINALIST: How Meridian and NZAS reimagined energy security
23 Jul 2025The 20-year demand response agreement between Meridian Energy and New Zealand Aluminium Smelters has reshaped the country's energy landscape. Signed in May last year, the agreement allows Meridian to call on NZAS to reduce its electricity consumption by up to 800 gigawatt-hours a year - effectively transforming the Tiwai Point Smelter into a massive, flexible energy reserve. This innovative commercial arrangement played a pivotal role during the winter of 2024, when New Zealand faced historically low hydro lake levels and an unprecedented gas shortage.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Genesis Energy – affordable energy key focus
22 Jul 2025At a time of rising costs in the energy sector, Genesis Energy has increased its retail customer base and booked a six-point gain in its customer satisfaction rating. The company reduced its retail overheads to keep operating costs stable in a high-inflation environment, and says keeping energy affordable so that its customers can thrive is a key focus. That has seen the firm's customer connections across its Genesis and Frank brands climb to almost 650,000, a 4.7 per cent increase from a year ago.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Northpower cadetships growing regional capacity
21 Jul 2025Northpower says its cadetship programme is helping meet its own workforce needs while also expanding training capability in the region. The company has offered cadetships since 2019. Training was initially provided in-house, but was then contracted to Whangārei-based Lines and Cables as the programme expanded. Bringing trainees from across the North Island to Whangārei for immersive, hands-on training is reducing Northpower's reliance on overseas hiring.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Contact Energy – Game-changing geothermal well cleaning
18 Jul 2025Contact says its enhanced regime for cleaning geothermal wells is reducing costs and lifting production. Geothermal wells are prone to formation scaling, where mineral deposits build up in the rock surrounding wells, restricting fluid flow and reducing power output. Traditional cleaning methods often relied on generic chemical treatments with inconsistent results. To deal with this, Contact and subsidiary Western Energy have developed a fully integrated, data-driven approach which matches chemical treatments to the unique conditions of each well.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Mercury’s customer care in collaboration with community
17 Jul 2025Mercury says changing its approach to retail credit and collections to a customer care-led model is helping identify and help at-risk households early. At the heart of this change is a collaboration with a trusted network of more than 70 NGOs and 30 government representatives that has helped thousands of households stay connected and access broader support services. Mercury says the results speak volumes; since June last year, it has had no post-pay disconnections for customers in hardship.
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AWARDS FINALIST: Mercury’s Digital River – transforming hydro operations
16 Jul 2025Mercury says its Digital River platform is more than a digital twin of the company's Waikato River hydro assets. The platform combines cutting-edge simulation, real-time data and user-first design to optimise the scheme's assets through smarter, faster and more responsive decision-making. Better decisions on plant dispatch, maintenance and peaking have lifted production and reduced spill.
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