PowerNet Wins National Distributor Award
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PowerNet has been named Energy Distributor of the Year at the 2026 New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards — recognition built on one of the worst weeks in the company's history.
The award was presented in Wellington on August 19, honouring PowerNet's response to the October 2025 wind storm that tore through Southland and Otago and cut power to more than 50,000 customers. Some were without electricity for 12 days.
The Energy Distributor of the Year category judges overall performance across technical, commercial, customer, environmental, social, governance and wellbeing measures. Winning it after the most significant outage event in the company's history says something.
PowerNet chief executive Paul Blue said the award reflected a collective effort that stretched well beyond its own staff.
"Our teams worked incredibly hard in some challenging conditions and were supported by colleagues from other electricity businesses and mutual aid partners from all over the country," he said.
"This award recognises our incredibly resilient community, too, which were incredibly kind and supportive of our teams, despite some being without power for 12 days."
Blue said the storm response produced hard lessons, and those lessons are now being turned into practical improvements.
PowerNet manages electricity networks across Southland, Otago, parts of Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes, and the Ruakura Superhub in Hamilton — serving around 78,000 customers across rural, urban and remote areas.
The irony is not lost that the award announcement was delayed because PowerNet was dealing with yet another outage event.