Contact Energy Ltd

Celebrating our incredible leaders! 🥳 Recently we proudly watched two cohorts of inspiring leaders graduate from our Mau Taniwha, Mauri Ora Leadership Development Programme. Over the past 9 months, these two groups have navigated through some of the most essential themes shaping leadership today: fostering adaptability, creating genuine connections, and leading through change with authenticity. These leaders have not only navigated challenges - they’ve supported each other in a true spirit of whanaungatanga, building bonds and insights that will serve them and our organisation well into the future. As one graduate put it “the power of being around peers and learning from shared experiences is easily underestimated!” We’re immensely proud of this programme, co-designed with our leaders, for our leaders, alongside the talented team at Adeption New Zealand (formerly JumpShift), and led with heart by our exceptional facilitator, Jacqui Beaver. To our graduates: you’re paving the way forward. Watching your journey has been a true highlight, and we’re excited to see how you’ll carry this energy and insight to the next phase! Shout out to: Joy Doran Andrew Gray Christopher Watson Corey Wynne Corinne Gouldsbury Dave Johns Jeremy MacIver Jordan Dodwell Justine Bouzaid Kirk Pritchard Lance Kerr-Taylor Lisa Chong Lucas Gammie Meghana Parakkat Rachel Desmond Nigel East Aiden McGillicuddy Ashley Teh Bodica MacDonald Filipo Thorpe Katherine Newman Marika Stevens Thomas Moot Melissa Richardson Nathan McLean Paige McLachlan Rachel Kirby Rachelle Meijer Robert Higgie and Russell Pearless

Well, it’s not every day we open a power station, but today we did! Our new geothermal power station at Tauhara will at peak produce 174 megawatts (MW) of electricity – that’s enough power for around 200,000 Kiwi homes. This morning the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister; MP for Taupō Louise Upston, our people, tangata whenua and the local community came together to mark the official opening of our of power station at Tauhara. It’s a standout renewable energy project and will be a fantastic long-term asset for New Zealand. A HUGE shout out to the 4,000 people who, over the past three and a half years, played a role in developing the station. Your hard mahi, dedication and tenacity are greatly appreciated 👏 Craig Woolacott Corey Wynne Jack Ariel John Clark Jacqui Nelson Sumitomo Corporation Unison Networks Ltd Transpower New Zealand

It was great to host our shareholders both in person and online today for our Annual Shareholder Meeting in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. At the event today, we announced the first steps redevelop the Wairakei geothermal power station at Taupō with a new 101MW geothermal power station called Te Mihi Stage 2.  A significant milestone for us as we deliver on our commitment to long-term, sustainable generation on the Wairakei steamfield - an important part of Contact’s renewable energy strategy. Thank you for the ongoing support and interest from our shareholders. Find out more about the outcomes of the meeting here: https://lnkd.in/gaV8hVWf

Being a good neighbour is at the heart of what we do at Contact, and a big part of that is supporting communities across Aotearoa. To make that support really count, we build meaningful and long-term partnerships with key community organisations and groups. Thanks to the help of Northland Community Foundation, NZ, we are pleased to announce the setup of a new fund called ‘The Northland Contact Energy Community Wellbeing Fund’. The fund aims to help improve the wellbeing of Northland communities by supporting services such as foodbanks, budgeting services and welfare centres. To get things started we have made an initial donation of $30,000, which the Northland Community Foundation will administer. Bryan Middleton, our Head of Customer Experience says: “We’re mindful people living in Northland have had a tough time this year, so we felt setting up this fund was a good way for us to support communities in the area.”

Talking all things Te Huka Unit 3: Exciting news – a key milestone has been reached at our newest geothermal energy power station this week! Transpower New Zealand are onsite in Taupō and have synchronised Te Huka 3 to the national electricity grid, meaning it is feeding power into New Zealand’s energy supply for the first time. This will initially be a small amount – about 15 megawatts (MW) – but it will then be ramped up over the next few weeks to its full capacity of 51.4MW ⚡ (enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes🏡). It’s been a busy month or so of commissioning work to get to this stage - from introducing steam to the separator, well testing, through to pentane arriving on site. A big shout out to our Te Huka 3 team for their incredible efforts! 🙌 There’s more work to go, with lots of rigorous testing planned to ensure everything is running safely and efficiently before the binary cycle geothermal power station is officially operational. Watch this space! Want more info? You can get it here: https://lnkd.in/gNYQDdMb

We’re excited to share that our Enterprise Architecture (EA) team have won Forrester’s 2024 Enterprise Architecture Award! 🥳 We believe the Forrester’s Award reflects how our excellent EA practices contribute to our high business performance and drive both our internal and external value. In a nutshell, EA helps organisations to align business and technology, much like a city master plan guides the development of a city. Just as city planners create functional and sustainable spaces, enterprise architects design digital ecosystems, focusing on the larger organisational picture and long-term sustainability. As part of Contact’s digital transformation, EA plays a crucial role in managing risks through seamless business collaboration, driving cost reduction and improving customer and employee experiences through architecture principles. Our Chief Information Officer Iain Gauld, Head of Enterprise Architecture Martin Bigwood, and some of the EA team will be attending Forrester’s T&I Summit APAC 2024 in Sydney at the end of this month to share Contact’s story and information and community technology (ICT) transformation. They’ll be collecting the award then. Congratulations team – it’s awesome to have your efforts recognised when you’re usually the unsung heroes! 👏

Kia ora, Talofa, Bula, Nǐ hǎo, Namaste – these greetings are in just some of the languages you’ll hear in our three contact centres across Levin, Dunedin and Wellington.    Aotearoa is made up of a diverse group of people, and so too are our customers. We believe it’s important our customers can access the information they need in their first language to help feel informed, connected and empowered.     Many of our more than 200 Customer Service Representatives working in our contact centres are multilingual, speaking te reo Māori, Samoan and Hindi (to name just a few languages!). We also have the ability to support customers whose first language is not English by quickly accessing a translator and conferencing them into a customer call. This means we can support our customers in up to 300 different languages.     So, no matter what language our customers speak, we’ve got them covered.    Happy Tuvaluan Language Week -  Vaiaso o te Gana Tuvalu 🌸 #TuvaluLanguageWeek #VaiasooTeGanaTuvalu #UpholdYourLanguage #LanguageIsIdentity

Battery Banter: A lot has happened in a short time preparing for our new 100 megawatt battery at Glenbrook. The site has been cleared and our earthworks and civil contractor, Hick Bros Civil Construction Ltd, have begun levelling works of the main battery foundation area, construction of the temporary erosion and sediment control pond, and set up the site car park and laydown area. Our site office is now also set up! Check out the video below 👇 Once up and running, currently scheduled for March 2026, it will be the country's newest large-scale battery, the closest to the largest city, and the first Tesla Megapack 2 XL system in Aotearoa New Zealand. The battery will provide enough electricity to meet peak demand for 44,000 homes for over two hours – helping to keep Kiwis warm over the winter. ⚡

Engaging with people, building positive relationships, and supporting each other are key to successfully building a new power station says Kevin. As the Health Safety Wellbeing Supervisor at Te Huka 3, his focus is the team’s physical and mental wellbeing. Kevin has been working on the new geothermal power station since ground was broken on site in August 2022.  He describes his role as influencing people to do their job safely and effectively and he enjoys supporting team members and contractors to reach key milestones in the project.   “There can be big challenges in this type of job, but that also makes the rewards all the more enjoyable. It’s all about celebrating the wins – big or small”, says Kevin. He explains there’s a lot of hard mahi involved and it is a high-pressure, high-risk environment, but everyone leans in if someone needs a hand. “The team is always willing to step in if things start to get hard. “Each person’s wellbeing needs are unique. What fills up one person’s wellbeing cup is likely to be really different to someone else. We try to take time out of our busy schedules to connect with one another. There’s a diverse group of people working on Te Huka 3, so it’s great to be able to learn about people’s different backgrounds and beliefs,” says Kevin. Like other members of the team, Kevin’s dance card is pretty full and he’ll move onto another project once Te Huka 3 is up and running at the end of the year. He believes it’s important for everyone involved in projects to reflect on how far they have come and to be incredibly proud of the work they’ve done “Everyone is passionate about doing a good job, and getting the job done safely. They’re great people to work with.” Kevin is all about connecting with others, bringing them together and working as a community, which ties in with the spirit of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Noho ora mai. #MHAWNZ

This week our CEO Mike Fuge sat down to talk with Helen Matterson for the ‘Shared Lunch’ podcast hosted by Sharesies. Mike talks about Contact’s proposed acquisition of renewable energy generation company Manawa Energy and provides a picture of what a combined portfolio of energy assets would look like. Click on the links below to listen/watch: 🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gX3Gm-w2 🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/g_Y_6mWy 📺 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gyXXWF9z