Power hubs aim to build energy resilience up Whanganui River

A portable Powerco stand-alone power station. Image / Supplied

Power hubs will be installed up the Whanganui River to build electricity resilience.

Powerco developed the hybrid stand-alone power supply units (SAPS) after Cyclone Gabrielle, which left many rural communities without power for extended periods.

“It’s a combination between their needs and our analysis around where we think there’s more likely to be an outage of a significant period,” Powerco general manager of electricity Karen Frew said.

Powerco worked with Civil Defence and the National Emergency Management Agency to identify the communities in need of power support and used data from councils to pinpoint the communities at risk of landslides, flooding and other forestry hazards, along with the difficulty of power restoration in these events.

The power hubs use solar energy and diesel to charge a battery bank with an automatic switchover during a power outage.

They will be linked to community centres, such as school halls and marae, to have a central community space of support during outages.

“The units are called stand-alone power systems and they supply enough energy for a community to be able to charge cellphones, cook and support each other for multiple days,” Frew said.

The stand-alone power systems serve not only a crucial purpose for the community, but an aesthetic one.

Trialled in their smaller mobile units, the boxes are wrapped with a distinctive artistic design to signify they are from Powerco and serve as an alternative to a plain grey box.

“It’s probably one of the coolest goodwill projects I’ve been involved in in a long time; our team are really enjoying doing the work. And it gives everyone a great sense of purpose as to why we are here as a business,” Frew said.

Powerco was still working on a timeline for the installation of the Whanganui River power hubs.

In the next 10 years, Powerco hopes to provide all 140 identified vulnerable communities with power support.

Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.