Preparing for an electric future
Our future electricity network will be very different from what you see today.
The next five-to-10 years are going to be busy. We need all hands on deck to maintain and build the infrastructure needed to help Kiwis electrify as Aotearoa New Zealand moves towards sustainable energy choices.
There’ll still be power lines, poles, cables, transformers and substations that will need to be maintained, fixed and renewed, but with new technology and evolving customer needs (think solar, EVs, distributed generation), we need to be ready.
Work for one of our contractors and want to know more? Find out more below or email contractor.enquiries@powerco.co.nz and one of our team will come back to you.
New Electricity Field Services Agreements (EFSAs)
So that we can be prepared to get all this work done, we’ve put our EFSAs for major electricity field services on our North Island network, which includes contract model change, out to tender.
The new contracts will start on 1 July 2025. Contracts are expected to be awarded in late March 2025.
What’s changing?
So that we have enough trained and experienced people for what the future will hold we will have:
More than one primary contractor (we currently have one) to provide major field services, including fault response.
Secondary contractors to provide work such as capital projects and maintenance, and support for fault response.
Our electricity network is being divided into four regions (currently one for our vast network), and we expect to award separate regions to successful tenderers:
- Coromandel to South Waikato
- Western Bay of Plenty
- Taranaki, Whanganui and Rangitīkei
- Manawatū and Wairarapa
Read the news release – Powerco electricity contracts going to tender.
Change in customer delivery work
In addition to the new EFSAs, Powerco is moving to a new way of managing its customer delivery services (also known as customer-initiated works or CIW). This means Powerco will manage the end-to-end customer experience, rather than a customer working directly with a Powerco-approved contractor (PAC) from July 2025.
So that we can have greater oversight of the quality, safety and the service we provide to customers, we’re reducing the number of PACs we directly engage to do customer work.
While we will reduce the pool of contractors approved to carry out customer work on our network, we stress that the volume of customer delivery work across the network will continue to grow because enabling the energy transition will see a significant increase in customer work from the past.
Read the news release about the customer services delivery tender.
The Customer Delivery Services tender will cover the same four regions set out in the EFSAs tender:
- Coromandel to South Waikato
- Western Bay of Plenty
- Taranaki, Whanganui and Rangitīkei
- Manawatū and Wairarapa
The Customer Delivery Services tender is for the entirety of each region, and includes high volume, repeatable connections, as well as a portion of project work, network extensions and upgrades on Powerco's underground and overhead network.
FAQS
What if my employer didn’t tender for the new contracts, or didn’t get a contract and I’m left without work?
We need technical and experienced people to help Powerco and our contracting partners to maintain and build the electricity infrastructure needed for Kiwis to decarbonise. We encourage you to share your CV with the companies that successfully tendered for our work. Contracts are expected to be awarded and announced in late March/early April 2025.
In addition, those awarded customer delivery services contracts, may choose to enter in to joint venture or subcontracting relationships with existing PACs as they scale up to meet the expected customer delivery workload.
How can I stay up to date about what’s happening?
Keep an eye on this page where we will share any major updates.