Creating a new energy future – a bold vision
Metering
Maturing and challenging ourselves on safety
Our Metering business has had a strong year. We commend the resilience of our metering teams and acknowledge the support of our customers, in particular those in Australia in the face of continued disruption from Covid-19 resurgences throughout the past twelve months.
We strive to be leaders in health and safety and are encouraged by feedback from our customers on the strength of our health and safety performance. We continually look to challenge the way we operate to ensure it is in the safest way possible for our staff and the people around them, and are looking to improve efficiencies for our field staff. To do this, we are placing a higher emphasis on the presence of positive and safe work practices, while recognising that our people are experts at their job, and are therefore part of any solution to safety concerns. Service development in Australia We have improved our service offering in Australia with the introduction of remote re-energisation and de-energisation services. These services have already enabled innovative consumer products in New Zealand.
Increased revenue Metering revenue increased 10.6% to $227.0 million from $205.2 million a year earlier driven by the increase in our advanced meter fleet. Growth in installations In the year to 30 June 2021 we have installed 33,578 advanced meters in New Zealand and 117,472 additional advanced meters in Australia. Our advanced meter base grew 8.8% to 1.86 million from 1.71 million in the year before. We have now deployed nearly 400,000 advanced meters in Australia and are averaging over 10,000 meter installations per month. Increased capital investment Total metering capex invested increased by 24.0% to $165.3 million with the high level of spend reflecting the continued deployment of advanced meters in Australia, 4G modem replacement programme, roll-out of advanced gas meters, investment in our digital platforms and an increase in stock levels to help mitigate Covid-19 related supply concerns. Next-generation connectivity This year we commenced a modem replacement programme. This programme will upgrade approximately 1.1 million meters with 4G modems in advance of the expected shutdown of the 2G mobile network in New Zealand. It is expected to take three years to complete and will enable us to continue to provide services to our customers for a longer period of time. This programme will lay the foundation for future innovation for our retailer customers, through providing an IoT- ready platform with faster speeds, better
responsiveness and added capacity. As a Living Wage accredited employer, we are also proud of the local employment this will generate, in the form of close to 200 roles, through our delivery subcontractors. Leading the way with advanced gas meters We have begun the roll-out of advanced gas meters in New Zealand, and are seeing high levels of consumer satisfaction throughout the process. Advanced gas metering provides consumers with access to more data more often about their gas usage, giving them the ability to make more informed energy choices. The advanced gas data service is the first on the New Energy Platform developed under the strategic alliance with AWS.
Building the New Energy Platform One year into the strategic alliance between Vector and Amazon Web Services, we have made solid progress against our stated aim to create the New Energy Platform. The first services to be delivered from the New Energy Platform are the advanced gas data services. The platform stores, processes and delivers advanced gas meter data which has been enabled through technology we have built and deployed through this strategic alliance. We are now developing the capability to provide electricity meter data at five-minute intervals for our Australian customers. This is the next step in our data services transformation programme, and will enable us to provide data services to other parties, such as network operators. The strategic alliance is a multi-year agreement, and one of a handful across the world. It will benefit our energy and utility customers and, ultimately, consumers in New Zealand, Australia, and beyond, through more flexible, efficient and faster processing of data. The alliance has resulted in the creation of 30 new digital roles in New Zealand, shared across the two companies, and all engaged in product development on cutting-edge public cloud computing services.
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