Northpower takes out major industry safety award

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Names of Northpower staff in photograph receiving Award: Brownie Wijohn, Tom Nopera, Don Stock, Vern Rosieur and Tony Doyle (Absent were Andre Watts and Keith Miller)

Media Release

21 June, 2006

Northpower takes out major industry safety award at recent power conference

Northpower’s innovative ‘Driving Safety Through Coaching’ approach to safety awareness by using coaches won it the 2006 EEA Industry Safety Award at last weekend’s Electricity Engineers’ Association’s (EEA) annual conference at SkyCity, Auckland.

“The use of coaches as a company-wide resource is a brave decision as it reduces front line capability in the short term but long term provides real impetus as it demonstrates the company’s commitment to the individual learner and excellent work practices,” says Richard Gibbons, EEA Executive Member. “The Northpower entry provided a sound mechanism to deal with the industry-wide issues of managing trainees and skill shortages.”

Auckland’s Tyco Electronics Sunil Kumar won the IET Best Paper Presentation on ‘Reliability, Improvement and Asset Protection of Electrical Power Networks by Mitigation of Fauna Induced Outages’; Auckland’s ElectroPar won the Best Trade Exhibition Stand with its Mobile Generator Connection Unit (MGCU) designed to improve the service and security of power supply to customers; while the 2006 EEA University of Auckland scholarship awards were awarded to students Daniel Tombleson and Usha Ganesham.

Other winners included Canterbury’s Orion NZ’s Steven Hirsch winning the Best Paper Award (Member) for his presentation on ‘Resonant Earthing’ while the University of Canterbury’s Dr Neville Watson won Best Paper Award (Non-Member) for his paper on ‘Compact Fluorescent Lamps’. Two scholarships were also awarded to University of Canterbury students Garry Heyes and Michael Lazelle.

The EEA conference was opened by the Acting Minister of Energy, the Hon Trevor Mallard, who delivered an address on the development of a National Energy Strategy and commented on the current review of Climate Change. Keynote speeches from Dr Ralph Craven, CEO Transpower, and Dr Keith Turner, CEO Meridian Energy, focussed on strategic and supply issues within the power industry.

International keynote speakers were Dr Jonathan Russell, an Economic Regulatory Consultant (UK), and distinguished lecturer and senior IEEE member, William J Ackerman (USA). Forty five wide ranging technical papers were presented by New Zealand and international speakers. Fifty eight companies exhibited products and services.

Over 500 delegates, visitors and exhibitors involved in the generation, transmission, distribution, retail and utilisation sectors of the New Zealand electricity supply industry attended this premier event. Detailed information is available on the EEA website: www.eea.co.nz

ENDS

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