Q Windfarm or hydro — what is your favourite?
A It is a bit like choosing between the Springboks and AB’s — heart and brain might make a different choice! From a carbon perspective I do prefer wind — it is by far the lowest carbon option available. Small scale run-of-river hydro, like the ones Pioneer operates, match really well to wind, since we do not need the large lakes. If you ask my team, I am sure they would prefer hydro, as it has very few operational issues and, after 80 years in the business, our hydro is like close family.
Q Where is Pioneer Energy at now and what’s next in store?
A After several years of strong growth, our strategy is now focused on improving the business we have — so no big bang plans for a while — yeah right! Over the last few years we made sure to have a much more diversified business in the energy sector. We not only cover generation of electricity but expanded the business to a national footprint to include retail of energy, supply of industrial thermal energy and delivering energy efficiency services. We formed key strategic partnerships in each of our core business areas to enable us access to more opportunities and achieve scale.
As a majority shareholder in Pulse energy, it is also great to be the major Highlanders sponsor!
What next? We are in the final stage of partnering with irrigators on the development of the Dairy Creek irrigation scheme just outside Alexandra — this will be our first investment in this space and we look forward to have this as part of our investment and service offering into the future.
Q What is your strategy as Pioneer Energy chief executive officer and what do you bring to the role?
A In my mind it is simple — we at Pioneer have a huge responsibility and privilege to be entrusted with a very important community asset. Our job is to manage Pioneer in a way that is sustainable, to ensure we can continue to deliver dividends to the Central Lakes Trust that can keep up with the charitable needs of our community. To achieve that we have to continuously improve the way we look after our existing assets, but also make sure we challenge ourselves to ensure we future-proof the business against a very competitive and challenging future in the energy space.
Personally, my original strategy when joining Pioneer in Central Otago was to slow down, spend more time with the family and get away from business travel (to be specific, airports — I just do not like them) and sitting in traffic the whole time.
I achieved two out of three — still have to do the damn airports!
Q Pioneer has twice been named the fastest-growing mature business (Otago and lower South Island) in the Deloitte Fast 50 Awards. To what do you attribute Pioneer’s success?
A We have a great shareholder and great forward thinking board of directors supporting
the growth strategies of our business.
This is complemented by an excellent team enabling the delivery of the growth opportunities that come our way.
Q Pioneer is 100% owned by the Central Lakes Trust. What contribution does it make to the Central Otago community?
A Pioneer makes up a significant portion of the CLT’s wider investment portfolio. As part of this portfolio, Pioneer is required to grow our enterprise value and annual dividends to keep up with the fast and ever growing Central Otago community and needs. We are now making an annual dividend contribution of between $7million and $8million to the trust; that is directly reinvested into the community through various charitable projects.
Q How green is Pioneer? How important is it to be environmentally conscious?
A I will explain how seriously we take this with an example. Through our subsidiary Ecotricity we are leading the energy market being the first and currently the only company to offer a 100% carbon zero certified electricity product, and we now have close to 2000 residential, commercial and corporate customers buying this product from us. Renewable is good, but sometimes a long way from being carbon neutral or even carbon efficient. For the Ecotricity product we have an offsetting arrangement with forests to ensure our product integrity.
Q Where are things at with the proposed Electricity Authority reforms? Will they still threaten the existence of many Central Otago power stations as you feared?
A The latest round of confirmed reforms will hurt Pioneer and several other small generators across the country.
The authority, however, did delay its final decision on a very controversial and serious aspect of the proposed reforms, relating to recovery of line charges from small generators. This second part continues to be a threat to the existence of smaller generation assets like the ones Pioneer owns and operates. We will therefore continue to educate and lobby our political leaders and the authority to ensure we can eventually have a balanced and sustainable outcome for all.
Q How should we be modifying our behaviours — at home and work, locally and nationally — to produce and use energy responsibly?
A I think this is very simple — we just need to be conscious of every energy decision we make.
As a country we are making good progress in this space, but there are heaps of opportunities to take further action — sometimes we just need to get around to making very simple changes in our behaviours, whether it is the way we drive, the type of transport or heating or lighting we use. Small, incremental, implemented changes is key.
