There is excitement for Twizel and excitement for all of the Mackenzie District with Meridian Energy announcing a call centre would open in the lakeside town, Mackenzie Mayor Graham Smith says.
A Meridian spokeswoman said recruitment started this week with about four customer consultant roles to be filled.
The call centre would be run out of Meridian's Twizel Office, which opened in June 2016, and it was expected to be operational by late February.
She said the Twizel team was to start with four positions, but there could be room for growth in the future.
Mr Smith said he was excited about the business move.
"The main centre for Meridian is always going to be the centre of hydro and that's Twizel.
"Twizel is a hydro town and [Meridian's] put a lot of money into Twizel.
"It's good news for us.''
He said smaller towns gave companies options big centres had trouble to match.
"I think if you take Auckland, for example, where you've got high rents and high rates, people having transport problems, rural provincial New Zealand offered a lot of things provided you can get good broadband access. That's the secret to it all.''
Meridian centre manager Rowena Fulham said creating the jobs in Twizel added to the resilience of the local community and added to the diversity of jobs the Twizel office provided, such as engineering and health and safety orientated roles.
She said Twizel was chosen over cheaper options, such as outsourcing to a call centre in Manila, because Meridian is a New Zealand-owned and run business: "We're committed to this as we grow our operations.''
