The New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards, an annual celebration of the best and brightest in the energy sector, saw success for Powerco, Hiringa Energy and HWR Hydrogen among the many other winners and nominees in multiple Award categories. 

Powerco, one of New Zealand’s largest electricity and gas distributors, took home the award for Energy Innovation. This recognition is a testament to the company's continued commitment to ensuring energy reliability and resilience in the face of growing challenges such as climate change and changing customer expectations.

Powerco is committed to connecting the communities it serves to safe, reliable, and resilient electricity and gas, while investing for the future. In the past year, it has started work on developing renewable natural gas and has combined technology and fresh thinking to deliver a range of initiatives including: designing safer roadside assets, leveraging AI to optimise vegetation management and implementing innovative non-network solutions to manage peak demand. Customer satisfaction is up, it was their safest year ever, and its SAIDI results were the best in nine years.

In accepting the award, Powerco Chief Executive James Kilty acknowledged the dedication of his team (see photo above) to enable a sustainable energy transition. He said that despite current challenges, the energy sector needs to work together to get New Zealand to net-zero emissions while growing the economy. 

“We’re obviously in a very difficult time in the energy industry, but it’s important we don’t lose sight of the fact that we have everything we need for a good transition."

“The capability in this room, the natural resources that we have in our country and your commitment is all that is needed. We can grow to zero.” 

New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world with the natural resources and the capability needed to keep growing the economy while working towards net-zero emissions by 2050, he said. 

“It just needs us all to have the ambition to do it and to collaborate like never before to make it happen. At Powerco, we’re committed to that.” 

Hiringa Energy, a leader in New Zealand’s clean energy revolution, was recognised for its groundbreaking efforts in hydrogen energy with the Low-Carbon Future Award. Hiringa’s win shows the growing importance of hydrogen in New Zealand's strategy to decarbonise heavy transport and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hiringa’s winning project involves the development of a national network of hydrogen refuelling stations, making zero-emission hydrogen fuel more accessible to commercial vehicles. This infrastructure is a key enabler of New Zealand’s transition to clean energy, particularly in industries that are traditionally hard to decarbonise, such as freight and logistics.

“This is fantastic recognition for our team,” said Hiringa Chair and co-founder Cathy Clennett. 

“We started this project from our garage in New Plymouth nearly nine years ago, and to have delivered a globally innovative network of refuelling stations is testament to our teams’ expertise and hard work. 

“We are on the cusp of genuine change in providing zero-emission hydrogen to New Zealand,” said CEO and co-founder Andrew Clennett. “With a network now in place we have enabled the transition from high emitting diesel trucks to zero-emissions hydrogen equivalents, which has the potential to cut the equivalent emissions of more than one million cars per year. 

“There’s clearly still a lot to be done, but this is a great chance to reflect on how far we’ve come already, and we’re thrilled to have received this award.” 

HW Richardson Group's HWR Hydrogen won the Social Procurement Award with their pioneering dual-fuel trucks which combine hydrogen and diesel to cut carbon vehicle emissions by up to 34%. The initiative lowers emissions at a fraction of the cost of alternative low carbon vehicles and preserves the value of the existing diesel fleet. The first five dual-fuel trucks in Australasia have been converted and certified and with fast refuelling, elimination of stranded asset, and minimal payload impact, this transitionary technology will help bridge the gap until 100% hydrogen heavy vehicles become widely available. 

See here for the full list of 2024 Award submissions, nominees and category winners . 

Note: The New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards were started in 2010 by Freeman, publishers of digital news and information service Energy News.