Central Otago company Pioneer Generation could sell electricity to its community, instead of to power companies, under one of many proposals put forward this week by the chief executive of online energy store Powershop, during a visit to Otago.
Pioneer Generation, formerly Central Electric Ltd and before that, the Otago Central Electric Power Board, owns 12 small power stations in Otago and Southland and sells all its electricity to Transpower.
Powershop chief executive Ari Sargent and business development manager Tim Fraser said their company, which has been running for about 10 weeks, was looking at finding a way to get smaller generators selling in the retail market.
The men visited Dunedin, Alexandra and Lawrence last week, to put the finishing touches on a deal with the Otago Rugby Football Union and to speak to Pioneer Generation and community members in Lawrence.
Pioneer Generation chief executive Peter Dowling said the meeting was to learn about Powershop's alternative way of selling electricity.
The proposal could mean Pioneer would sell electricity generated by its stations as a retail product for Central Otago people, through Powershop.
"We hope the community might see the attractiveness of a local product," he said.
Mr Dowling said they had left the meeting with Powershop "fairly open" and would consider the deal they had been offered.
While in Dunedin, Powershop completed a distribution deal with the Otago Rugby Football Union where 1c from every unit of electricity used by those who sign up will be donated towards amateur rugby in the region.
ORFU and Highlanders commercial manager Mike Kerr said the package would be available on the Powershop website in the next week.
The package, which is similar to one adopted by the Canterbury Rugby Football Union, will always be 1c per unit more expensive than the cheapest electricity deal.
Mr Kerr said the union hoped to attract people from rugby clubs as well as the wider public to the package.
A proposal by members of the community in Lawrence to have the whole town convert to Powershop followed on the heels of their free broadband scheme, and was an example of a plan which could see the service spread to other areas quickly, Mr Sargent said.
For now, Powershop, a wholly owned subsidiary of Meridian, is available only in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
