AWARDS FINALIST: Westpower – innovation, reliability, and sustainability

Westpower 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.

Westpower is leaning heavily on new technology to limit costs to its customer-owners and to improve the resilience of their energy supply.

In the past two years, the firm has commissioned a mobile 670 kVA back-up generator and transformer and has also activated a back-up operations centre at Dobson.

Critical infrastructure upgrades in the past year have included work in storm-prone areas like Fox Glacier and Greymouth, ensuring power continuity during extreme weather events.

Acoustic monitoring

Internally, Westpower has digitised its systems to improve efficiency and transparency - including the introduction of real-time outage maps, automated capture of field data and electronic contractor competency cards.

It has adopted acoustic monitoring to improve fault detection, and its homegrown, transformer-based PowerPilot low-voltage monitoring tool is now being used across New Zealand and has recently been installed in the United Kingdom.

That focus on improved technology and efficiency helped keep an increase in the firm's network charges among the country's lowest this year.

At the same time, better management of vegetation risks has reduced tree-related outage minutes by about 80 per cent during the past two years.

The company, which commissioned the 7.6 megawatt Amethyst Hydro Scheme in 2013, is continuing its bid to build the 23 MW Waitaha hydro project near Hari Hari in order to improve the resilience of the West Coast's electricity supply.

Wind and solar

It is also using that generation expertise to help design and build wind and solar projects from Northland to Southland, and it is now pursuing decarbonisation for industrial processors looking to electrify their activities.

The firm, which has grown from a 60-strong network operation in 1997, is positioning itself to deliver on the country's largest electrification projects as part of its mission to provide "sustainable electrical solutions that enhance communities."

And that expanding range of activity has it projecting revenue of $147.3 million for the year to 31 March, 35 per cent more than last year and twice what it brought in during the March 2023 year.

Westpower says its growing balance sheet will help ensure the long-term success of the business for its community owners, who have benefited directly from annual power discounts worth $3 million in recent years.

The annual Energy Excellence Awards will be held in Wellington on 13 August. The Energy Distributor of the Year award is sponsored by Axos Systems.