Engaging with our communities

We're committed to engaging with the communities we serve; to understand their needs and inform the decisions we make about the future of our networks.

You’ll find many of our community engagement activities and partnerships, as well as information about where we’re investing in the electricity or gas networks in your area on the community map link below

 

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Community Engagement
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Investing in your community's electricity network
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Goals and targets FY27

Here's what we want to achieve for Pou whakakotahitanga over the short, medium and long-term.

Short term (1 April 2026 - 31 March 2027)

  • Understanding our customers' needs: Maintain or improve overall electricity customer satisfaction at or above 60%, measured across a rolling 12 months.

  • Understanding our customers' needs: Maintain net promoter score of >50 to measure our quality of new gas customer service and experience.

  • Understanding our customers' needs: Undertake eight regional forums designed to regularly check in on a variety of customer-focused issues with representatives of significant end users.

  • Effective community engagement: Undertake community engagement for 75% of complex projects.

What we did during FY26

  • Understanding our customers' needs: We achieved our overall customer satisfaction target of 60% FY26, across Powerco's electricity footprint.

  • Understanding our customers' needs: The Gas Hub FY26 net promoter score for new gas connections was 65. This exceeded our target to maintain the net promoter score of >50.

  • Understanding our customers' needs: Customer perception of Powerco's brand and reputation improved from an average of 39% to 44% in FY26. This target has been updated to align more closely with the material topic of understanding our customers' needs.

  • Effective community engagement: A measurement for ensuring our engagement is proportionate to customer impact was not undertaken during FY26. Our target for FY27 is for community engagement to be undertaken for 75% of complex projects.

  • Understanding our customers' needs: An improvement in pricing methodology and contributions policy could not be assessed during FY26 as this was dependent on the EA scorecard. The EA hasn't made any commitment to produce scorecards again, and without this it will be hard to independently measure an improvement. During FY26, we did introduce standardised pricing for simple connections, which has improved the process for these customers. 

 

  • Effective community engagement: Powerco has refreshed its suite of emergency response plans during the financial year, including the Electricity Networks - Incident Plan and Enterprise-wise Major Events Plan. Powerco has also provided feedback on the proposed Emergency Management Bill to the Governance and Administration Select Committee to strengthen coordination and communication going forward. Following adoption of the new Emergency Management Act, Powerco's response plans will be reviewed against the new Act and, where appropriate, updated to align to the requirements of the Act, including regional and national response plans. 

 

What we did during FY25

  • During FY25, we installed four low voltage network battery configurations, as a proof of concept for deferring higher cost upstream lines investments and to prepare for a future larger scale roll-out. The units will alleviate power quality issues to customers in the suburb by storing electricity in its batteries and then releasing it to the suburb when demand exceeds supply.
  • We maintained our overall Customer Satisfaction score of 59%.  Whilst this in isolation did not meet our target of a 5-point improvement in Customer Experience across our electricity footprint, customer satisfaction with quality of supply and communication both improved by approximately 2-points.
  • We maintained our net promoter score of >50 which is a quality measure for our gas customers' service and experience.
  • Customers’ perception of Powerco’s Brand and Reputation remained steady with a score of 40%.  This did not meet our target of a 5-point increase but remains a goal for FY26.   
  • During FY25, an Executive Team-endorsed Customer Insight Framework, was developed.  This will embed customer research into BAU decision making and be publicly available via our Asset Management Plans. 
 
  • The Electricity Authority did not release a scorecard during FY25 - the next updated scorecard is due in FY26.  During FY25 we have made significant steps to improve our pricing methodology which will be implemented in the FY26 pricing update.  
 
  • During FY25 our long-term DSO transformation goals and plan were agreed with our Board.  All of our DSO1.0 targets were delivered. Initial potential for $127m deferable capex was identified over the next 10 years (through flex services and associated initiatives).
 

The pillars of our work