Annual Connection, managed by training provider Connexis, is a prestigious three-day competition that attracts national interest while also showcasing and celebrating industry trainee excellence.

The event sees crews of line mechanics and cable jointers from around the country compete in a series of challenges that put their workplace skills to the test.

To host the 2025 event at Canterbury Park on 21-23 October, Connexis is partnering with three local companies: Ōtautahi/Christchurch electricity distribution network Orion Group, Ashburton-based distributor EA Networks, and Connetics Ltd.

No disruption for trainees and apprentices. That's the key message for those in New Zealand's electricity supply industry (ESI) from the sector's leading training provider as the country's vocational and educational training (VET) structure is reviewed by the Government.

Connexis supplies industry training to the ESI across the country, as well as other infrastructure sectors such as civil, telecommunications and water.

Connexis executive director Kaarin Gaukrodger says at the time of writing, the Government was still assessing submissions on the best future structure for vocational training, but trainees, apprentices and employers can be reassured that learners will not see any interruption or changes to their current training.

The Customer and Product Data Bill is currently working its way through parliament. This bill will introduce a consumer data right (CDR) into New Zealand and will apply to electricity retailers - the concept is commonly referred to as open electricity. The intention of open electricity is to promote greater competition and give customers (both individuals and businesses) the ability to better understand, control and manage their energy usage.

CDR will mandate that energy retailers in NZ enable their customers to share data - such as their contact details, electricity usage and payment history - with other organisations and withdraw their consent to share the data at any time. Implementing your CDR obligations will be complex and will require the deep involvement of your legal, risk, technology, compliance and transformation teams, who must each understand the regulations, rules and standards, as well as your unique data, integration, technology, customer experience, security, identity, privacy and risk implications. We at the Middleware Group have found the depth of change this demands of an organisation is rarely fully understood at the start.

Using big data to make better network decisions.

Data is fast becoming the most valuable asset in an EDB's toolkit, with data-driven strategies offering a smarter approach to network resilience than traditional capital investments.

As smart meter data becomes more readily available, electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) are eager to harness its potential. However, transforming that raw data into actionable insights requires smart solutions, as the team at Northpower found during their trial with Hiko Energy Insights.

Future Grid is excited to announce that it has been selected by Orion NZ Ltd to supply its Low-Voltage (LV) Network Analytics Platform. Orion owns and operates the electricity distribution network that provides power throughout central Canterbury, serving more than 215,000 customers.

"Orion is leading the way in the New Zealand market for LV visibility and analytics. We are thrilled to have been selected through a competitive RFP process." says Chris Law, CEO of Future Grid.

Future Grid has been working with other EDBs across New Zealand, including Buller in Westport, PowerCo in New Plymouth, Wellington and NorthPower in Whangārei. Following the announcement, several other EDBs have engaged Future Grid to pilot its technology, taking its customer list to an impressive 60 per cent of the NZ market.

Future-proofing your network doesn't have to mean more infrastructure or personnel. Nelson Electricity’s four-person team transformed their operations — all through use of their smart meter data.

Finding the Right Solution

The team at Nelson Electricity was searching for a solution that would provide value quickly for their small team. They also wanted a tool that could adapt over time, as the network scaled up.

Operationally, they wanted to change how they monitored their LV network, shifting away from a process that relied on conducting manual measurements each winter. Viewing the network in real time would also enable them to validate their processes for new connections and PV connections, with visibility of congestion.

Transpower’s 2024 Engineering and Technology Excellence Awards were awarded on Tuesday 15 October and recognise the incredible collaborative innovation happening in our country to find engineering solutions to complex challenges.

These awards were open to teams and individuals working in the electricity transmission sector, across the country.

This is the second time the biennial awards have been presented, with the inaugural awards presented in 2022.

There are six award categories and an overall supreme winner. The categories are:

In early 2024, Future Grid officially launched the DSO Box with 1000+ electricity Coops in the US. The DSO Box has now become the solution of choice for NZ EDBs, where security and cost are important for the AMI analytics business case.

Why the DSO Box?

Small/secure/on-premise hardware Eliminates cloud costs forever 100+ analytical outcomes

Is the DSO Box right for me?

Designed for EDBS with less than 100,000 ICPs, the DSO Box has become popular in New Zealand, with over 10 EDBs recently

The best of New Zealand’s line mechanics and cable jointers will be going head-to-head in the Waikato, showing off the skills that keep our communities connected right around the country.

Annual Connection 2024, held in conjunction with Connexis, is a prestigious three-day competition that attracts national interest. It sees line mechanic crews and cable jointers from around New Zealand compete in a series of challenges that put their workplace skills to the test.

Annual Connection is also an opportunity for school students to see energy supply workers in action and get a feel for what a career in the industry looks like.

Don't miss your chance to attend the premier event dedicated to the future of wind energy in New Zealand, the NZ Wind Energy Summit.

The Summit is being held on 10-12 September in Wellington and will feature presentations from across NZ and the international wind energy sector.

This year’s over-arching theme, "Our Wind, Our Future", encapsulates wind energy’s critical role to deliver our future clean energy needs. Aotearoa’s wind resource is not only abundant, but it is world class in terms of sustained wind quality, which we should all embrace. The secondary theme of this year’s event is focused on the wind sector's ability to provide energy security to the grid. While wind is intermittent on a short-term basis, we have 21 wind farms and 661 turbines operating in real time (a total of 1.26 GW installed), with capacity factors far greater than what is observed in other jurisdictions. New Zealand’s wind farm geographic diversity and high-capacity factors, therefore, enable the sector to deliver critical energy at times when we need it most.

After working with more than 50 utilities around the world, successful low-voltage analytics projects follow a “stabilisation” path by focusing on strategies any electricity distributor can adopt, including:

Pilot for Production A Best in Suite mindset (vs “best in breed”) Think Platforms

The following is an extract of Future Grid’s paper to be presented at the EEA2024 Conference (https://confer.nz/eea2024) being held at Te Pae, Christchurch from 10 - 12 September.

Introduction to Stabilisation

Mercury NZ has around 573,000 electricity customer connections. In the future the energy data management software robotron*esales will manage Mercury’s LCOM division, where 7000 ICPs including all generation plants will be billed.

Along with managing all billing relevant tasks, the software will handle quotation calculation and market communication for Mercury.

Mercury is helping move Aotearoa New Zealand to a low emissions future through generating electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources: hydro, geothermal and wind, and Robotron is proud to help!