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 build a clearer picture of current experiences, future electricity needs and priorities for the area.
We want to hear what matters most to you, now and in the future. This includes how well the electricity network meets local needs, how electricity use may change over time, and what should be considered as planning for the area progresses.
Reliability is one part of this work. We also want to understand local priorities, interest in options such as solar and batteries, and the choices or barriers that may influence what is practical for the community.
What we learn will also help improve how customers and communities are involved in future electricity planning.
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 are we looking at?
We’re exploring what could help meet Kāwhia’s current and future electricity needs, while supporting a reliable, resilient and adaptable electricity supply.
Areas we are exploring include:
- improvements to the existing electricity network and how it operates
- ways to strengthen reliability, resilience and communication
- options that could support important community services when the network is under pressure or disrupted
- how electricity needs may change as the community and local economy develop
- emerging energy options and how they could contribute to Kāwhia’s future electricity needs
- opportunities to work with marae, community organisations, Civil Defence and other local partners alongside potential network improvements.
Community feedback 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 helped shape the planning.
What we heard from you
Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences and ideas through our community survey and conversations.
Your feedback highlighted five key themes: affordability, outages and reliability, everyday impacts, communication, and resilience and future energy options.
Our engagement findings summary brings these themes together and outlines how your feedback will help inform the next stage of planning.
What happens next?
We’re using what we’ve heard from the community alongside network information and technical assessments to help inform future planning.
This includes exploring potential improvements in the shorter term, while considering longer-term options and how these could respond to the area’s changing needs.
There is still work to do before decisions are made. We’ll continue to engage with the community as options develop and share updates on:
- the options we’re exploring
- how community feedback is shaping our assessment
- the decisions we make and the reasons for them
- what will happen next.
Survey prize draw winners
Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our Kāwhia electricity future survey and share their views with us.
Congratulations to our 10 prize draw winners, who each received a $150 Prezzy® Card: Horahaere, Jean, Kerry, Marama, Margaret, Megan, Ronika, Russell, Sara and Warick.
The feedback received through the survey, alongside our community conversations and workshop, is helping us build a clearer picture of local priorities and what matters most for the future of electricity in Kāwhia and surrounding areas.
Keep sharing your thoughts
We welcome further feedback from people across Kāwhia and the surrounding rural communities. If you have an experience, idea or question you’d like to share, please get in touch.
Email: communications@waipanetworks.co.nz
Phone: 0800 800 769