16 Oct 2024
Transpower’s 2024 Engineering and Technology Excellence Awards were awarded yesterday and recognise the incredible collaborative innovation happening in our country to find engineering solutions to complex challenges.
These awards were open to groups and individuals working the electricity transmission sector across the country.
This is the second time the biennial awards have been presented, with the inaugural awards launched in 2022.
There are six award categories and an overall supreme winner who best demonstrates driving transformational change through engineering and technology.
The 2024 supreme winner is the Transpower team who successfully developed a method to ensure that electricity sold on the market is priced in real time.
New Zealand’s previous electricity market design had a two-day delay in spot prices, hindering real-time decision-making and efficient market operations. The Real Time Pricing (RTP) project aimed to provide real-time price certainty, requiring significant engineering efforts for real-time data processing and modernising legacy software.
Real Time Pricing delivers real-time spot prices every half hour, enhancing decision-making, participation, renewable energy integration, and demand management. It improves price accuracy, reduces volatility, and drives innovation.
Implemented by the Electricity Authority, Transpower, and NZX, real time pricing supports energy optimisation, distributed energy resource (DER) integration, and a shift to a low-emissions economy, ensuring efficient energy management.
Our panel of judges were, Dr Keith Turner, Michael O’Donnell and Priti Ambani.
Dr Turner commented on the Supreme Winner, “Real Time Pricing is a game changer for the wholesale electricity market. The shift from a two-day delay to spot pricing every 30 minutes brings in the demand side of the market providing real price sensitivity. This was an extremely complex project, demonstrating excellence in a large software engineering project, an activity where New Zealand does not have a good track record. It has resulted in a strong positive influence in the electricity market and benefits for NZ Inc now and into the future.”
The judges thanked everyone who took the time to enter a nomination, “it was an incredible honour and pleasure to review this year’s nominations. It was a real joy to see the complex and challenging work our people do. It is innovative and collaborative. All these initiatives and innovations have achieved significant benefits for NZ Inc. The commitment and creative talent of our people, and those we work with is evident and we look forward to seeing more of their great work in 2026. Congratulations to all!” Dr Turner said on behalf of the judging panel.
For more information
For more detail about the finalists and winners in each of the categories please view the Transpower website.