Improving reliability for Powerco customers
Location: Waitara, Taranaki
Start date: August 2024
Completion date: March 2025
Project client: Powerco
We construct and maintain critical infrastructure
Every day our teams are onsite, delivering work to construct and maintain critical infrastructure to deliver power to consumers across the North Island. Our long-standing reputation for exceptional service delivery to network owners is built on more than 90 years of connecting New Zealanders.
10000
person-hours invested
60
personnel delivering the project
5000m
33kV cable installed
Upgrading security of supply
Powerco’s Waitara electricity upgrade in Taranaki involved increasing security of supply to over 7,000 customers. This significant upgrade included new double 33kV lines that link the Waitara East, Waitara West, McKee and Inglewood substations to electricity supply from power generation sites nearby and meet additional demand from Todd Energy’s production station.
Historically, Waitara has only been fed by a single line. This new double line will provide added security of supply to customers, with one line acting as a backup if the other line is unavailable.
Collaborating with local hapū
Powerco first engaged with hapū, Otaraua and Pukerangiora in the design stages of the project. Northpower have continued this engagement throughout the project’s delivery.
The area has many sites of cultural significance to hapū, including several associated with the New Zealand Wars. With cultural input from hapū, Northpower teams have been following cultural protocols on wāhi tapu (sacred sites) to ensure our work is culturally safe, especially in areas where ancestral remains may be uncovered during digging works.
Installing new electricity infrastructure
Our civil, lines, and jointing teams are delivering significant works, laying new 33kV lines both underground and overhead. The work includes laying 2.5km of new 33kV underground cabling, and 2.5km of 33kV overhead lines supported by six new 15m tall poles structures.
This network upgrade will provide Powerco’s Waitara customers with a more resilient power supply to fuel future growth in the area.
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