PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
Electricity in Kāwhia and surrounding areas
Electricity plays an important role in everyday life across Kāwhia and surrounding areas, supporting homes, businesses, farms, marae, schools and essential community services.
We’re working with mana whenua, local residents, businesses, schools, essential services, community organisations and rural customers to plan for Kāwhia’s electricity future.
We want to understand what matters most to local people, both now and in the future. This includes how outages affect you, how local electricity needs could change and what you would like us to consider as we plan for the area.
Reliability is an important part of this work. Kāwhia’s long rural electricity network can be harder to access and repair when faults are caused by severe weather, slips or vegetation. This means some outages can last longer and have a bigger impact on local people.
This work will also help us improve how we involve customers and communities in future electricity planning across our network.
Why we’re doing this work
Kāwhia and the surrounding rural communities are supplied by a long electricity network.
Severe weather, slips, vegetation and difficult access can make faults harder to reach and repair. Longer outages can affect water, communication, food storage, business activity and the services people depend on.
Network data tells us what is happening. Local knowledge tells us what it means in everyday life. We need both to make sound decisions about Kāwhia’s electricity future.
What we’re hearing so far
We’re building our understanding through community conversations, site visits, interviews with local organisations and what we’ve learnt from recent storms.
Early conversations have highlighted:
- longer outages can have a real impact on households, whānau, businesses, farms and marae
- the importance of maintaining electricity for essential community services
- the need for clearer and more timely outage information
- the greater impact outages can have on isolated households and people who rely on electricity for health or other essential needs
- the different experiences between Kāwhia township and surrounding rural areas.
These are early themes. Wider engagement will help us understand whether they reflect the experiences and priorities of the broader community.
How your input will shape the work
We’re still at an early stage. What we hear from the community will help us:
- build a clearer picture of how electricity supports everyday life and where the main challenges are
- understand what matters most to local people and what the area may need from electricity in the future
- test possible options as they develop, including what could work locally and any benefits, impacts or trade-offs we should consider.
What are we looking at?
We’re exploring what could help improve electricity reliability and resilience in Kāwhia and meet the area’s future needs. Affordability and long-term value will be important considerations as we look at the possibilities.
Areas we are exploring include:
- improvements to the existing electricity network and how it operates
- ways to reduce the impact of outages, including fault response and outage communication
- options that could strengthen local resilience for important community services during longer outages
- how electricity needs may change as the community and local economy develop
- opportunities to work with marae, community organisations, Civil Defence and other local partners alongside potential network improvements.
As the work develops, we’ll talk with local people about what could work well for Kāwhia and the potential benefits, impacts and trade-offs.
What we hear will be considered alongside network performance, technical requirements, affordability and long-term value. We’ll keep the community updated and explain how local feedback has shaped our thinking.
Upcoming hui and engagement sessions
As hui and community engagement sessions are confirmed, we’ll add the details to this page.
Session details can change, so please check this page before attending.
What happens next?
We’ll bring together what we hear and use it alongside network data, technical options and costs to shape the next stage of planning.
As the options become clearer, we’ll provide further opportunities for you to contribute.
We’ll report back on:
- the themes and priorities identified through engagement
- the options we’re looking at
- how local input influenced our assessment
- the decisions we make and the reasons for them
- what will happen next.
Have your say
We want to hear from people across Kāwhia and the surrounding rural communities. You can share your views at an upcoming engagement session or contact us directly.
Email: communications@waipanetworks.co.nz
Phone: 0800 800 769