Contact Energy Annual Report 2022.
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
On behalf of Contact Energy, we welcome you all here today for the annual shareholders' meeting. We acknowledge the people of this land, we acknowledge those loved ones who have passed, and we acknowledge all of you, our shareholders, who have made time to join us both in person and online to receive the annual results for 2022. I now ask the Contact team to join me for the first time singing our Waiata, Mai I R unga.
Mai i runga, mai i raro. He ora mō te katoa. Nō ngā mata hēkei iho kia tata pū e. Ko Waharua te tauira rurukutia e te katoa. He kaupapa whakaurua i te kāinga nei. He kaupapa aroha. He kīngi hiki rangi. He kaupapa whakaheke kia tata pū e. Kia tata pū e.
In closing, I want to refer to the final verse of our waiata.
He kaupapa aroha, he kīngi hiki rangi, he kaupapa whakaheke kia tata pū e.
This verse talks about being on a mission together. Together as people linked with Contact Energy. Our task together is to be leaders across the sector to decarbonize Aotearoa. Kotahitanga, unity, pursuing a common goal and mission, and a task that binds us to our kaupapa is critical to our future as Contact and our future as Aotearoa, New Zealand. Nō reira, tēnā koutou. I will now hand over to our Chairperson, Rob McDonald.
Thank you, Ruku.
The Kiwi home. They come in all shapes and sizes. How they look isn't as important as how they make you feel. It's not an understatement to say that home is the center of every Kiwi's life. At Contact, we believe in advancing the quality of home life for all New Zealanders. We believe a well-heated, well-insulated home is a home you can relax in, rejuvenate in, thrive in. The kitchen is the heart of every home, where we can boil, bake, fry, grill, toast, roast, and whisk a smile onto the face of the whole family. Home is where we work, stream, connect, and communicate with the outside world. At Contact, we are always looking for new ways to help you save rather than spend more. By home, we don't just mean your four walls, but Aotearoa, where we all call home.
That's why at Contact, we're committed to leading New Zealand into a better energy future through renewable energy sources, so we can protect future generations and create a better home. Because at Contact, we believe home is the most important place in the world. Let me come home. Contact, it's good to be home. Our home. Let me come home.
Ē ngā mana, ē ngā reo, ē ngā rangatira mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Contact's annual shareholder meeting. My name is Rob McDonald, and I'm the Chair of the Contact Board. Welcome to those who are joining us in person today at Eden Park in Auckland, and those joining us online. I'm delighted that we can again hold an annual shareholder meeting in person, something we haven't been able to do since 2019. It is very nice to see you all here in person, and I hope you can stay for morning tea following the meeting.
For those who are here in person. In the unlikely event of an emergency, if the fire alarm sounds, please follow the instructions of the ushers and go to Gate G or Gate F and continue across the parking lot to the assembly point on Reimers Avenue. As a quorum is present and due notice of this meeting has been given, I declare the meeting duly constituted and open for business. I'd like to introduce others with me on the stage. To my immediate left is Mike Fuge. Sorry, Mike is the Chief Executive. Next to Mike is Victoria Crone. Next to Victoria is Sandra Dodds, and beside her is Jon Macdonald. Then on my immediate right is our General Counsel, Kirsten Clayton. Next to Kirsten is Elena Trout and then David Smol. Next to David is Rukumoana Schaafhausen.
Members of the Contact senior leadership team are also here today, as well as representatives from our current and former auditors, EY and KPMG respectively. EY was recently appointed as Contact's new external auditor for the financial year commencing the first of July 2022. KPMG was the auditor for the past financial year and accordingly will be able to answer questions in relation to the financial statements. As you will have noted, today's meeting started with a greeting by our board director, Rukumoana. This was followed by the Contact Waiata Mai I Runga, which is customarily sung to support the greeting. We do this because it's important we acknowledge our relationship with iwi stakeholders and the fact that we use New Zealand's natural resources to generate energy of which our iwi partners have an interest in. Today's meeting will commence with addresses from myself and Mike Fuge.
Following this, we will consider the financial statements and there will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions they may have on the financial statements. We will move on to the resolutions that are outlined in the notice of meeting. We have two resolutions to put to the meeting today, and these resolutions will be decided by taking a poll. There will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions relating to these resolutions and to raise any additional matters that shareholders wish to discuss. All shareholders participating online can ask questions during this meeting, and I would encourage you to send these questions through as soon as you can. This will allow us to answer these questions at the appropriate time in the meeting.
To ask a question, click on the box that says Ask a Question and follow the instructions on screen. You must register to vote before you can ask a question. Please note, questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on the same topic, they may be amalgamated together. If we can't answer a question in this meeting, we'll answer it in due course by email. I'll provide you with further instructions in relation to voting as we progress through the meeting. If you encounter any issues, please refer to the virtual annual meeting online portal guide or you can phone the helpline 0800 200 220. Let's get underway. I wanna update you on our strategic ambitions and to take a moment to talk about the path ahead as we continue to play a leading role in decarbonization.
Despite challenging global economic headwinds as we continue, we have continued to deliver solid returns for our shareholders and ensure that Contact is well-positioned for the future. A future where we will help build a better Aotearoa, New Zealand. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge Mike, the Contact leadership team, and our Contact whānau, who every day come to work to make a positive difference for our customers and stakeholders. They focus on how Contact can support New Zealand's decarbonization, at the same time continuing to deliver solid financial performance through the economic and COVID headwinds. Contact people have consistently delivered, and for that I say well done and thank you. It has been two years since we launched our Contact26 strategy to be a leader in New Zealand's decarbonization.
To do this, we had four pillars: develop new flexible renewable generation, decarbonization of our portfolio, grow demand for renewable electricity, and create outstanding customer experiences. I'm pleased to report significant progress in the past year that positions Contact well for sustainable growth. Our strategy allows Contact to leverage our strengths and to respond to external drivers, including changing shareholder and societal expectations. We are responsibly managing the natural resources we use, as well as reducing New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. Contact is continuing to bring new renewable electricity projects to market. We've made good progress with our Tauhara geothermal development near Taupō, a nationally significant renewable generation project. It is now expected to generate 174 MW of renewable energy, up from the 152 MW we first announced at the investment.
The scale of this project is evident, with over 500 people currently working on the construction site. This year, we're also pleased to announce a further NZD 300 million investment in a new 51.4 MW geothermal power station at Te Huka, near Taupō, which will generate from 2024. Our technical capability and knowledge, and experience gained with the Tauhara project has enabled us to confidently bring forward the Te Huka investment. We have lodged resource consent applications to redevelop the Wairākei Geothermal power station when consents expire in 2026. Just an interesting fact, the original Wairākei geothermal plant was commissioned in 1958. This redevelopment will move the existing operations away from the Waikato River and increase efficiency and generation capacity from the Wairākei resource.
In addition to our geothermal development, we have developed a strong pipeline of wind, solar, and grid-scale battery opportunities. This pipeline will provide us with the investment options for solar generation as early as 2024, and wind generation as early as 2027. As we invest in new renewable generation to support demand growth, thermal generation will be removed from our portfolio. We will ensure that our transition is orderly to support the security of supply and energy affordability for New Zealand. Our journey to decarbonization began in 2015 with the closure of our Ōtāhuhu thermal plant. In 2023, we will close our Te Rapa gas cogeneration power station, and we expect to decommission the gas-fired Taranaki combined cycle power station in 2024, once the Tauhara power station is operating.
Contact is committed to our science-based target to reduce from 2018 levels Scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions by 45% by 2026. Today, I am pleased to tell you that we are well on that way to that target, and we have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 33% from 2018. With the planned closures of Te Rapa and the Taranaki combined cycle plant, together with the closure of Ōtāhuhu in 2015, Contact's emissions will have reduced by 70% over a 10-year period. This represents approximately 2 million tons of CO₂ emissions being avoided each year. That certainly makes Contact Energy one of the leaders of decarbonization of the New Zealand economy. We're also continuing to explore options to further reduce emissions, including piloting re-injection of future fugitive CO₂ emissions from geothermal fluids.
Transpower's Scope 1 and 2 report forecasts electricity demand to increase by 68% by 2050. We are seeing accelerated interest from both domestic and international customers for significant new demand. New Zealand's electricity market, in the face of volatile international energy markets, is increasingly being recognized as a world leader in stability and affordability, as well as a high and growing portion of renewables. This demand has been slower than anticipated. However, our pipeline of new projects is strong, and we remain confident that new demand will continue to materialize. We are pleased to have won a number of awards that recognize Contact's focus on outstanding customer experiences.
This includes Energy Retailer of the Year at the New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards, four awards at the New Zealand Compare Awards, Best Customer Support, Power, Best mobile application, power provider of the year, and supreme champion award across broadband and power. At the Advertising Industry's Effectiveness Awards last month, we won a Gold Effie for our brand campaign launch, It's good to be home. These awards are testament to the focus of the Contact team. The path to decarbonization will demand significant investment. The recent independent Boston Consulting Group report, The Future is Electric, sets out the extent of the investment the sector will have to make collectively through to 2030 to deliver a near 100% renewable generation. That figure is NZD 42 billion in the 2020s across generation, transmission, and distribution.
As I've said, Contact is well-placed to play our part to deliver a fully renewable electricity system. We will continue to support the work by government on options to support renewable electricity, including the development of the New Zealand Energy Strategy. However, the government must carefully consider how potential interventions impact necessary investment in new generation. The report highlights there are significant policy considerations for the distribution and transmission of energy to support transition to a zero carbon electricity industry. The New Zealand government's battery project is exploring options to address dry year risk, including the large-scale Lake Onslow scheme. Contact has a direct interest in the specifics of Lake Onslow with the proposed intake and outlet impacting water flows at our Roxburgh Dam.
The Boston Consulting Group report clearly identifies the significant progress already underway to address the dry year risk and that there are lower cost and more effective ways to decarbonize the New Zealand energy sector, including the use of smart technology and increased demand response. While the government's evaluation of Lake Onslow is at an early stages and ongoing, Onslow is a high-risk and expensive option to address the final few percent of renewable generation when compared to other opportunities to decarbonize New Zealand. It is a less than ideal location, and we fear its cost is vastly understated. If it proceeds, it will have a chilling effect on the robust renewables investment pipeline we now see. Experience with similar but smaller projects than Lake Onslow, such as Snowy Hydro in Australia, face significant cost overruns and delay.
On the financial front, the 2022 financial year was a solid one, a year in which we continued to deliver to New Zealanders and communities we are privileged to operate in. Contact delivered a firm financial performance over the last year with EBITDAF of NZD 537 million, and net profit of NZD 182 million, despite unpredictable and volatile trading conditions. This unpredictability has been compounded by a combination of global energy supply and security concerns, exacerbated by the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with subsequent unprecedented increases in international energy prices, including coal, which has coincided with a reduction in gas output from domestic gas market.
These thermal fuel challenges further support the acceleration of Contact26 strategy, and we will continue to progress a wide range of renewable energy projects across the country in an aim to lead New Zealand's decarbonization. Our retail business has grown its market share in electricity and broadband through innovative retail plans, resulting in Contact being the fastest growing energy and broadband company in the past financial year. In February 2022, the dividend policy was revised to target a payout ratio of 80%-100%. Sorry. In February 2021, the dividend policy was revised to target a payout ratio of 80%-100% of the average operating free cash flow of the preceding four financial years. This saw the board approve a final dividend that brought the annual dividend to NZD 0.35 per share in line with the previous year.
Our financial performance in the first four months of the current year has reflected the significant rainfall resulting in softer wholesale spot electricity prices. We expect wholesale prices for the remaining seven months of this year to firm with fuel secured for the next year when the market is expected to be tighter. Before I hand over to Mike, I'd like to pay tribute to the board. Our board is full of talented people with a wide range of experience, perspectives, and networks. You're in good hands. Thank you to Victoria, Sandra, Rukumoana, Elena, Jon, and David for your relentless commitment and dedication in the past year. I would also like to acknowledge and thank KPMG for their 17 years of service as the Contact auditors. The board decided after 17 years, as a matter of good governance, to seek new auditors.
This aligns with our recent policy of limiting our auditor tenure to 15 years. Finally, I would like to say thank you to all of you who have come today, whether in person or virtually, and for your ongoing support as investors of Contact Energy. Your support is much appreciated. We are focused and well-positioned for the future leading New Zealand's energy transition and to create value for all our stakeholders alongside sustainable success for our shareholders in the long term.
Ngā mihi nui.
Kia ora koutou. Ko Mike Fuge ahau. Te kaupapa o te atamata he kau. Tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou katoa. Ngā mihi, Rob.
Thank you. In looking back over the past year, I feel a real sense of pride and satisfaction at all the Contact team have achieved. It has been a year characterized by solid financial performance, progress on nationally significant renewable developments, managing through a challenging economic environment, and supporting New Zealand's energy well-being while exploring new demand and generation opportunities. All this has been underpinned, as Rob has said, by our Contact26 strategy to build a better Aotearoa by leading the country's decarbonization. I'll first turn to our generation and development activity. We have over NZD 1 billion of construction projects in train and underway at Tauhara and Te Huka.
We have plans in place to develop up to 5.7 TWh of new renewable generation this decade. Of this, 3 TWh, it represents our geothermal renewable developments in the Taupō region, including Tauhara, Te Huka, and the planned redevelopment of Wairakei. The remaining 2.7 TWh represents wind and solar opportunities where plans have progressed with land access secured, and for some sites, consenting has actually begun. In addition to this, we're also continuing to explore opportunities to further build our pipeline of other wind and solar opportunities. To provide some context to the scale of Contact's development pipeline, 5.7 TWh represents nearly an 80% increase in Contact's current renewable generation output in a mean hydrological year. The recent BCG report release suggests that an increase of 11 TWh of generation will be required in New Zealand by 2030.
If realized, when netted back with our thermal closures, these developments we have could contribute almost half this required increase in generation. Our Tauhara project remains on track. The impact of COVID and tight supply chains, like other construction projects in the nation, have placed additional pressure on project cost. We continue to feel the impact of higher input costs, increasing labor costs, and China's COVID policies, shutting factories at short notice. As the project has progressed, we've also found the complexity and scope definition of the plant were beyond our initial expectations. As a result of all these combined factors, costs have increased to NZD 880 million, a NZD 62 million increase since our previous update, including contingency.
We have a high level of confidence that the updated cost of NZD 880 million fully reflects the remaining cost to complete this project. Pleasingly, a significant component of the increased cost actually reflects a further expansion in the capacity of the plant, which has increased to 174 MW, up a further 6 MW from our last update. This means that on a cost per MW basis, the project cost has escalated by only 4% since our last update. At approximately NZD 5 million a MW of base load, renewable electricity energy, Tauhara remains a world-class project without peer in New Zealand or indeed an international context.
Since the project began, we have also seen wholesale electricity market prices increase due to rising capital costs across all generation technologies, higher interest rates, higher carbon costs, and the increasing costs of gas and coal, thermal fuel. As a result, we are increasingly confident of stronger returns from uncontracted sales from the project despite the higher build costs. The project remains on track for delivery in the second half of next year, which given the external environment and excellent project economics, is a very pleasing outcome. We've also taken the learnings from the Tauhara build into our next project at Te Huka. We announced this 151.4 MW plant in August and work has already commenced. We expect this plant to be up and running by late 2024. We're particularly proud of the training and employment offer opportunities that these projects offer.
Since launching in October 2021, our Ka Hiko program has seen 20 Ākonga, including 12 Wāhine Toa start, complete the course and start work on the site at Tauhara. Ka Hiko brings to fruition our promise to provide job and skill development opportunities to the local community. Consenting work on the Wairakei field renewal is well progressed. The consent hearing was held in October with no opposition from submitters or the council. This reflects the positive engagement in the building of sustained relationships with the local community and tangata whenua. We expect a final decision on the consent by year-end. If approved, this will enable our continued operation in the Wairākei field for the next 35 years. I expect you'll have seen regular announcements about new wind and solar developments from a myriad of potential local and international investors. It remains unclear how many of these announcements will actually eventuate.
A similar phenomenon experienced in Australia while I was there a few years ago, with many parties kicking the tires as it were, but few actually making it into execution and to the market. We at Contact take a very disciplined approach based on great data with our wind and solar investment project pipeline, starting with a selection of good quality sites. We have begun consenting activities for a number of high priority Southland and South Island and North Island sites and are finalizing land access agreements for several sites. We have several wind masts arriving before the end of the year, which will be erected to further assess the available wind resource. Our commitment, you know. When it comes to customer experience, our commitment to innovative products and experiences has paid off, with significant growth in customer satisfaction and retention.
Our Voice of the Customer program shows 67% of our customers say they are satisfied with Contact, and 79% say that we are easy to deal with. As evidence of this, our Net Promoter Score, the number of customers who say they'd recommend us versus those who would not, increased significantly again this year from +31 to +39. We now have 580,000 connections, and we remain one of the country's fastest-growing broadband providers. Having said that, we acknowledge that New Zealanders are living today in an environment where there are inflationary pressures on households. Interest rates, global supply, and the effects of two years of pandemic uncertainty have certainly taken an effect. At Contact, we have had to increase our retail prices recently.
In line with our pricing principles, we have actually shielded customers for the full impact of the wholesale price increases we've seen for the past three years, which has helped customers and ensured that Contact remains competitive in what is a highly competitive market, and we can keep growing our retail business. Wholesale prices, given the international situation, are likely to remain elevated for several years. This reflects the reality that firmed electricity in a renewable transition is more expensive. Significant investment in renewables on the scale that we at Contact have committed to will address this over the longer term as New Zealand's reliance on thermal energy reduces in the coming years. We're also focused on getting alongside New Zealand consumers to help them shift their demand to off-peak periods, reducing the need for high-cost thermal generation that is required to support periods of peak demand.
Earlier this month, we launched Dream Charge, our EV charging plan. That enables customers to recharge their EVs with cheaper rates from 11:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. and redeem AA Smartfuel credits that can be converted to ChargeNet credits, in turn enabling people to charge anywhere. More than 35,000 customers have signed up to our Good Nights plan, giving them three hours of free power in off-peak from 9:00 P.M. to midnight. We, as a company and as a country, are well into the transition to the renewable transition. Gas will continue, however, to play an important part of that transition, and we are confident of an ongoing supply of gas for our generation plants and consumers for the foreseeable future. The reality is that rapidly growing intermittent wind and solar will continue to have to rely on fast start thermal generation to provide firming.
We are well-insulated from price volatility that may emerge as gas use declines, given our proximate gas supply, our storage capacity, and the closure of the Taranaki combined cycle plant in 2024, which Rob alluded to. Our transformation program, Mau Taniwha, Mauri Ora , which broadly re-translates to harness the energy, create well-being, is aimed at ensuring that we as a company have the capacity and capability to deliver on our strategy. In essence, it's about building the muscle strength for sustained growth through focused execution.
It's aligned to our aspirations to lead New Zealand's energy transition, to leave our home in a better place for future generations, to become New Zealand's most sought-after workplace, with a workforce that reflects Aotearoa, to then innovate the way we work and deliver value to our customers through digitization, and to deliver value to our shareholders through doubling the value of our company. Our transformative ways of working program continues to give our people the flexibility and choice to work from anywhere. It is well embedded. It makes us a more effective and productive workplace, and it ensures that we can continue to attract the very top talent of this motu wherever they live in New Zealand. Two days ago, we launched our new parental leave policy, Growing Your Whānau, of which I am incredibly proud.
From basic compliance, we now offer primary carers 26 weeks salary top-up, employer KiwiSaver contributions while on leave, 10 days paid special leave, six months flexible working at 80%, but paid at 100% on return to work, along with three months of free power and a NZD 5,000 childcare koha. It ensures that Contact is the most attractive workplace in New Zealand, and we attract and retain those critical skills that will underpin our ambitious growth plans. With the next generation in mind, we are focused on being a responsible, world-class organization. We know our families, our teams, and our communities expect to be good corporate citizens. Similarly, investors can increasingly consider sustainability-based measures alongside traditional financial measures when assessing our company performance. Our Dow Jones Sustainability Index results were released recently.
This year, we scored 72 and are rated currently in the top 87th percentile in the Asia-Pacific region. In December, we will know whether we will be included in the prestigious Asia-Pacific DJSI index. Before I finish, I'd like to acknowledge and thank Rob and the board for their continued support. I would also like to give a huge thank you to the Contact team for their purpose and passion into doing a great job. None of what we have achieved would be possible without our people. Thank you to our customers and suppliers. Thank you to our neighbors. We live, work, and operate in communities across New Zealand, and we know our actions impact on the people and the environment around us. We will keep striving to be the good neighbors you want to have. Thank you to you, our investors.
We appreciate more than ever your continued support of Contact in this critical period of growth.
Ngā mihi nui.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mike. We now move to a discussion of Contact's financial statements. The financial statements of Contact for the year ended 30 June 2022 were released to the market on the 15th of August and are set out in the annual report, which is available on the website. I'd now like to open the floor for any questions you may have specifically on Contact's financial statements. As previously mentioned, KPMG was the auditor in the past financial year and is present at the meeting, should shareholders have any questions of them. There'll be plenty of time later for any questions you may have that are of a more general nature. We have some microphones available. If you wish to speak, please put up your hand and wait for a microphone to be brought to you so that we may hear your question.
Are there any questions on the financial statements from shareholders in the room?
Yeah. Hi, Michael Bowden, Shareholder. Normally, with companies, when you present your talk about your financial performance, you quote the previous year's financial performance as well as the current year. How are shareholders, you know? It's all very well talking about solid performance, but on what basis can shareholders judge whether it is a solid performance if we can't see the figures for the previous financial year?
Thank you for that question. Well, I appreciate what you say. I'll be upfront that the EBITDA and the NPAT were lower, but not substantially lower. We'll make sure it is for next year. Look, when I say it wasn't lower, it was just fractionally lower. The reality for us, our earnings live a bit on how much it rains in a year. One of the issues there is, when I say it's a solid financial year, we then look at other metrics before we make that statement.
We're quite confident that as we look at, say, years previous to that, where the EBITDA was more like NZD 480, then we look at where NZD 537 was, we're very confident we can call that a solid year. Thank you for your question.
Thank you. Jane Lowe.
I've got a question about the dividend policy. You've mentioned that it's been a challenging environment and with a lot of costs, and yet your dividend policy says that you're gonna give out 80%-100% of free cash flow over the last four years. Is that really prudent currently? Not that we don't love dividends, but.
Yes, it is. We have a tremendously strong balance sheet. The earnings in the past year, as I keep saying, were solid. Actually, the dividend rate is lower than it was two years ago. It's fair to say we, you know, you can imagine we model these projects going forward based on, a base set of earnings and things like that. We're very confident. We take a fair bit of time to work through the analysis before we set the dividend. We're very thoughtful, but we're also mindful that we like to make sure that, you know, we're just not chopping and changing dividends. We give it some sense of consistency to it as well, where that is appropriate. Are there any other questions in the room? No? We'll move online. Sorry.
We have no online questions.
Okay. Was there one more question there?
I'm not sure whether to raise it here or with the change in the auditors. Two companies, energy generators changed auditors or changing auditors this year, you and Trustpower and Manawa Energy. There's been a slight change in some of the disclosures that you've actually made. There's been a couple of improvements, and I wonder why when it comes to setting out the remuneration and skills matrix and stuff like that, why earlier disclosures, which are coming out now, weren't in place. Just to give you an example, there were four out of the five energy generators where actually CEOs departed, and the long-term incentive schemes paid out via equity are all noted differently in the disclosures.
I'm wondering why Contact Energy didn't make it as clear as other energy generators on what prior CEOs get on their final pays? When Mike Fuge leaves, there tends to be an average tenure of five-six years, and the LTIs are about five years. Why that wasn't clearly set out in your accounts. I see this year you've put the fair value of any LTIs at between NZD 8-NZD 9 and one last year as well, but the year before isn't disclosed. Can you please. Or are the auditors available to comment on that?
Just on the, you made a question that there'd been two changes of audit. In the financial statements, you're saying there's not a change of auditors. So the auditors didn't start till the first of July. Let me answer more generally the question around remuneration and why we hadn't disclosed it in previous years. Look, we're on a continuous improvement journey around things of disclosures. We get feedback from shareholders, particularly institutional ones, what we think or what they think we should be doing. We do strive to improve that each year. I think I reflect on our disclosures of remuneration. I think they are a good balance of what's required by the law, but we go a fair bit further.
I would say that Dennis Barnes did leave some time ago, and we fully disclosed his final year payment then.
I'm not debating that you didn't. It's the way it's actually disclosed. You actually have to have a bit of nous around you and look on the NZX and realize how many equity shares were issued, calculate out the fair value. You're the only energy generator that's actually done that. I wonder why, really. Why isn't it just been a bit more transparent that we all get to know these things?
Well, I can't speak for the other listed companies.
Maybe you should learn, probably.
Sorry?
Maybe you should learn is probably where we're going with this.
I'm just slightly confused on your question. Are you saying we don't do that or we do?
No, you actually put a narrative in there with footnotes and says how many shares per equity, and it's 78.4% of whatever or 50%. Most companies would actually calculate it for you or actually disclose what the volume of shares is? That's probably where I'm going with it.
Okay. We'll take that on board. Thank you. Thanks for the feedback. Okay, any more questions from the floor? Yes, we have one.
This is a question relating to Mike Fuge's talk earlier on. Just trying to get it right, but it seems like there's quite a massive demand for electricity in New Zealand. Is it the Boston Consulting Group suggested maybe an extra three dec-
Sir, could we hold that question till general business?
Oh, sure. Sorry.
We're just dealing with the financial statements.
Fine.
We'll move on. We'll come back to you. Thanks. Okay, I don't think there are any more questions, so we will now move on. We'll move on to the formal resolutions for the meeting. These are outlined in the notice of meetings sent to all shareholders in October. Voting on the resolutions will be by poll. Each resolution will be put to the meeting with the proxy voting results displayed on the screens. For those of you here with us in Auckland, you will be able to cast your vote by filling in the form you received at the registration desk on your way in, and which will be collected at the end of the formal part of the meeting.
If you're a shareholder and did not register on arrival and wish to vote, please make your way to the registration desk just outside the room, and staff from Link will assist you. If you're both a shareholder and a proxy holder or a shareholder, company representative, or have more than one holding, you would have received separate voting cards for each shareholding. When you vote on the resolutions, please complete all voting cards given to you at registration. For those of you attending the meeting online, to vote, you will need to click Get Voting Card within the online meeting platform. You will be asked to enter shareholder or proxy number to validate. Please then mark your voting card the way you wish to vote by clicking for, against, or abstain on the voting card.
Once you have made your selection, please click Submit Vote at the bottom of the card to lodge your vote. Please refer to the virtual meeting online portal guide or use the helpline specified if you require assistance. Voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. Resolutions one and two are set out in the notice of meeting, are each to be considered as ordinary resolution and as such must be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast. Our first resolution today relates to the re-election of one of our existing directors. It is now my pleasure to move that Elena Trout be re-elected as a director of Contact Energy. Elena Trout has been a director since October 2016 and is the Chair of the Safety and Sustainability Committee and a member of the Development Committee.
A brief biography for Elena is set out in the notice of meeting. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her re-election. I would now like to invite Elena to speak in support of her re-election.
Thank you, Rob. Greetings and my warm welcome to you all. I'm Elena Trout, and I'm privileged to have this opportunity to stand for re-election as an independent director of Contact Energy. I'm standing for re-election because of my commitment to Contact Energy to lead New Zealand's decarbonization of the energy sector. Rob referred earlier to the big changes occurring in the energy sector, our journey to decarbonization, and for this transition to be orderly to support the security of supply and energy affordability. Affordable and reliable electricity generation with low or no emissions is fundamental to the quality of life for all New Zealanders, which will provide economic benefits to our country. In my view, Contact Energy is a key part of New Zealand's solution to tackling climate change.
With the Contact26 strategy, together with its mix of assets, we can maximize value for shareholders and society alike. It is well-placed in addressing the energy trilemma of energy equity, energy security and reliability, and energy sustainability. Contact is making good progress in achieving its elements of the Contact26 strategy. The Tauhara and Te Huka geothermal projects are underway, and there is an exciting pipeline of renewable generation projects using wind, solar, and battery technologies. All these projects will help New Zealand to achieve a net zero carbon economy by 2050. We have so much work to do in other areas as well, including working with our customers on retail offerings to assist them in managing their electricity requirements.
Consumer expectations continue to be high, and there's need for transparency of pricing that is simple to understand and affords them options to allow them to make informed choices. The recently launched product of powering up your EV at home and managing your household electricity needs through the Good Nights product are such examples. We are well equipped to deliver on our Contact26 strategy to help decarbonize New Zealand, and our growth plans are solid for meeting the challenges of the forecast increase of electricity usage. We need to continue our work to support businesses on their own journeys and to assist them to move from fossil fuels to electricity. Against this background, we need to excel in operating our assets safely and reliably, and in a manner that cares for our people, our communities, and the environment.
The high bar of social and environmental responsibilities expected of Contact Energy need to be demonstrated by action and working collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders and our iwi partners. We have made good progress in demonstrating our ESG credentials, and our ESG commitments are aligned to achieving sustainable shareholder returns. I'm particularly proud of the support we give Women's Refuge for their work across New Zealand and families that struggle with energy hardship. We have also implemented a workplace program for iwi community in the Taupō area, so they can be part of our exciting geothermal development and which provides people pathways for improved prosperity. I'm a professional civil engineer by training and hold a master's degree in civil engineering. I have more than 30 years of experience in leading the development and delivery of significant projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors.
I've been recognized by my engineering profession with the award of Distinguished Fellow for my contributions to engineering. I have a deep knowledge and experience across the energy supply chain, the technical and regulatory frameworks of electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and consumer expectations. I am very aware of the ever-increasing pace of change occurring in the energy sector and the impacts emerging technologies will have on how we generate and consume electricity now and into the future. I also bring significant governance experience through my previous and current director roles. As the current chair of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, EECA, I'm also acutely aware of the importance of the demand-side solutions to customers as they move towards a sustainable energy supply.
That experience, among others, gives me a unique insight in the importance of security of a resilient electricity supply to our country, its businesses, and its people, which is not only affordable, but reflects the values of protecting the environment for today and for future generations. With my engineering background and governance experience, I believe I have a lot to contribute to support and, at appropriate times, challenge Mike and the team at Contact to continue to be an exemplar of operational excellence to support the development and delivery of new renewable generation assets and delivering sustainable profits to you, our shareholders. I look forward to continue to govern in the interests of Contact shareholders.
Nō reira, kua mutu taku mihi. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
Thank you for listening and for your consideration.
Thank you, Elena. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions that shareholders present or online would like to ask Elena? Are there any questions online?
We have no questions online.
Okay. Please now complete your voting card beside resolution one. Please indicate your vote by marking either for, against, or abstain in the appropriate place on the voting card. The second resolution to be considered relates to the auditor. I now move that the directors be authorized to fix the fees and expenses of the auditor. As previously mentioned, EY was recently appointed as Contact's new external auditor for the financial year commencing July 1, 2022. EY is automatically reappointed under Section 207T of the Companies Act 1993. This resolution proposes that the board be authorized to fix the remuneration of the auditor, which is the conventional practice for New Zealand listed companies.
It reflects the fact the level of the auditor workload, and therefore the fee, may need to change from time to time to take into account changes in the company's size or complexity or changes in the law or accounting standards. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions?
Sorry, Mr. Chair. Jenny, shareholder. Will the auditors be doing any extra consulting outside their audit work?
Now. Please now complete your voting card beside Resolution two. Please indicate your vote by marking either for, against, or abstain in the appropriate place on the voting card. Have all those that wish to vote now voted? It would appear so. Link Market Services will now collect your voting papers. Please place your voting paper in the ballot boxes as they are passed around. Shareholders participating online via the virtual meeting website should now submit their votes online. Voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. For the information of shareholders, there are now proxy. Here are the proxy votes received for the resolutions. The votes will be counted, and the results will be announced to the NZX and ASX this afternoon. Okay, I think we're done there. Now let's move on to general business, the exciting part of the business.
This is your opportunity to discuss anything we have not already covered or ask questions of the board or management team. Before I open the floor to questions from those present and online, we have one question submitted prior to this meeting. The question is: Given our country, New Zealand, appears to be struggling to meet the energy needs of our population, would it not be prudent of Contact to forgo dividends for a few years and instead reinvest more capital into sustainable energy generation capacity? I haven't actually ever been asked a question like that before, but. The energy sector in New Zealand currently operates very effectively to meet demand. Our network is one of the most reliable in the world.
Having said that, as highlighted by the Boston Consulting Group report, significant investment is needed in the electricity sector to meet New Zealand's increasing demand for electricity. In preparation, Contact has developed a pipeline of renewable projects with NZD 1.7 billion of planned investment, including 220 MW of new geothermal generation capacity with Tauhara and Te Huka. We continue to look at other investment opportunities in geothermal, wind, solar, and grid-scale batteries. To firm up our balance sheet, we have sold non-core assets such as Rockgas and Ahuroa Gas Storage, so that we have a strong capacity to invest. In February 2021, we also raised NZD 400 million in equity to give us more capacity, and we revised our dividend policy to 80%-100% of operating free cash flow.
The dividend policy allows attractive cash returns to shareholders while maintaining balance sheet flexibility to respond to demand upside above our communicated NZD 1.7 billion investment program. Does anyone present or online have a question? We'll start with questions from the room, and we'll go back to the person in the corner there.
James Su Hoy, shareholder. The Boston Consulting Group, I think I heard Rebecca correct, but correct me if I'm wrong, suggest an extra 11 TW required by 2030. Is that correct?
Yes.
Now, I think that's rather significant given what you've just told us about what's happening in Taupō, the Tauhara and Te Huka projects. Did you say about 200-odd MW?
225 MW, to be exact. About 1.8 TWh. The BCG report is 11 TWh.
From my understanding, a TW is 1,000 gigawatts, and a GW is 1,000 MW. In other words, a tera is equal to 1 million MW. Now, if you're doing about 200-odd MW in Taupō and consider it to be significant, how many of those Taupō projects are in 11 TW?
You've got to convert from the nuance of the electricity industry. The MG are the capacity and when we talk about the TWh, it's the amount a plant produces in a year, converted back. New Zealand has a demand and generation of about 40 TWh. That 11 TWh of growth represents about 25%. That capacity of 225 MW that we're building at the moment will produce about 1.8 TWh, call it two. It's about 18-20% of that 11 TWh in what's required. We convert it to TWh because it levels the playing field. Remember, our geothermal plants operate for 95% of the time, whereas solar you get about 20% capacity factors and wind 40%.
We always convert to TWh to absolutely level the field. To put it another way, that 225 MW we're building in Taupō is equivalent to a 600 MW wind farm or a 1 GW solar farm. That's probably made it worse. Sorry.
Thank you. Thank you. It frightened me a bit just before. An associated question then. If you recall the time required to build a hydro dam, and the most recent one was the Clyde Dam, which took forever. Is it much faster to develop what we're doing with the renewables?
It certainly is. Dams of the scale of Clyde and the difficulty of Clyde, and particularly the difficulty in that region just highlight, I think, you know, the challenge that Lake Onslow would have. To build a wind farm, it's not so much the construction that is the challenge, it's the consenting. Our assumption is sort of a seven to nine year journey. Most of that is consenting. Not too dissimilar with geothermal. It's quite a process to go through the consenting. We were very fortunate to have, particularly in Tauhara, the consenting process quite well advanced, almost finalized. You can see with Tauhara, that might take probably 2.75 years from the original investment go that we did.
That's a big plant, so Tauhara is a bit smaller, that'll be a bit quicker. The one renewable that is fast is solar. Both at a consenting level but also a build level. The wind and solar, I think we'll see quite a gathering momentum in the coming years.
Thank you very much. Is it possible to read the key points of this Boston Consulting Group's report?
Sorry, is it possible?
The Boston Consulting Group report, and they're talking about what we need and by 2030. Is it available to the public?
I believe it is.
We believe it is.
Yeah.
We can make that available to you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Kia ora, everybody. Peter Musbrugger, shareholder. I have three questions of a technical nature. First one is concerning the emissions from geothermal. I understand that geothermal plants can emit nasties. Where on the scale of good emissions or bad emissions are Tauhara, Te Huka and Wairakei?
I could answer that. Given, as you highlighted, it's technical, I'm actually gonna give it to Mike because he, to your point, do they? They do clearly emit CO₂. We certainly have plans that we're advancing of how to deal with that. Also, since the refinery closed, the CO₂, industrial CO₂ is in shortage in New Zealand now. I will let Mike answer that question in a more technical way.
You're gonna get a roll of numbers again, I do apologize in advance. Coal, coal-fired generation, produces about 1,000 grams of CO2 per kWh. Combined cycle gas produces between 300-500. Wairakei and Tauhara fields on which the Tauhara and Wairakei developments and Te Mihi have a CO2 content of between 20-50 grams per kWh. They are an order of magnitude lower. All that is a function of is you've got very hot water under pressure deep in the earth. When it comes to surface, it's like taking the lid off a Coca-Cola bottle. The naturally dissolved minerals do come out.
We're going beyond that because we have found what looks like a very promising way of capturing those gases and putting them back into the water which we reinject in the field. That's the Tauhara trial that we spoke about, which for those low CO2 geothermal fields we've got looks very promising. Some geothermals do have very high CO2 emissions relatively. They can be up as high as 300, not as bad as coal or gas. The Wairakei and Tauhara fields are very good in that regard.
Thank you. Question number two. International energy supply was mentioned. How do we actually export our energy?
Sorry, how do we export our energy?
I understand that we sell energy overseas, internationally. How do we do that?
To the extent we export goods overseas that have a high usage of electricity, and the obvious one is aluminum. Effectively, that's how we're exporting electricity.
We're not shipping batteries overseas?
No.
Yeah, okay. Thank you. Number two is internet provision. I understand that we bundle internet provision with our-
That is correct, yes.
Why do we do that? Perhaps we could get into water provision or transport provision also. Why is internet provision part of our business when we're, you know, we are in the energy business, not internet business?
Well, you rightly point out we're in the energy business, but we're also in the home business as we try and as we highlight with our brand campaign. We look at things in the home, and the obvious one and because Chorus is the provider of broadband, it makes it a compelling product for us to as an adjacency to add to our power offering as well. When customers, you know, take both products and the other product they take is gas as well. It makes it a lot simpler for them. They become more loyal customers for us. We give a very strong product, a very competitive product for our broadband.
Okay. It's profitable then, rather than, say, selling water with it or some other.
Yeah.
household thing that we need at home.
Just to add to that, it's that longer-term vision of helping Kiwis decarbonize their homes. We have smart meters in the home in New Zealand to a level unseen in the rest of the world. All the appliances enabled that we buy these days are enabled by Wi-Fi. If you're providing the electricity and with EVs coming, the homes have to get smarter and the way that's gonna happen is through broadband. That's the vision, is that we enable Kiwis to use their energy, their electricity, far smarter, so that we're charging EVs at the right time, that appliances go on at the right time, and they're not driving up that thermal generation that we talked about.
Thank you.
Thank you. It's Mike Carter speaking. With this, geothermal water coming up, are they making any efforts to, study what it is and see whether it has any value to the nation in terms of rare earths?
Again, I'm gonna hand to Mike. The answer is yes. And certainly, you've probably heard of others around Wairakei in one of our fields called Te Huka. They've obviously got, you know. The water is full of minerals. So, there's clearly possibilities there. Mike, do you wanna add to that?
Yeah, just to add to that. You've got Geo40, who are a startup who are looking at extracting, I think, silica at the moment. You're absolutely right. The geothermal fluid does have significant metals in it, lithium, even gold, apparently. Obviously in concentrations which make it uneconomic at this stage to extract. That is indeed one of the opportunities on the go forward.
I want to thank you for the speech that you have made about the progress, and it certainly sounds wonderful. Certainly sounds wonderful. However, I have a question or two, and a comment or two. You mentioned about the number of people who have joined Contact. It would be good to know how many have left Contact as a comparison. A company's reputation is its most important thing. It's important to be absolutely transparent. Like this gentleman said over there, it's good to have the numbers. I understand that you analyze it and you're happy with it, but we'd love to know as well. Similarly, you mentioned that you had all these new customers, and a couple of times you mentioned how good you are to those customers. I'm one of those customers who you haven't been good to.
I would like to say to you that among all the wonderful things that you do in the things that you mention, it doesn't translate to customers. You have the worst power company. Contact Energy rated as the worst power company in Consumer NZ survey last year. I don't think it's any better today. It goes on to say, that someone said that they would like to see, from Contact, more people move up to the satisfaction curve over the next 12 months. It hasn't happened. I'd like next year for you to comment on the people who are unhappy and the numbers you have and how long it takes for you to resolve things.
I have found it impossible to get through to Contact on a number of times, and I think that affects people already as a very, very bad look for Contact. I'm looking now at the review page for Contact, and it managed to get 2.2 out of five. That's less than 50% of the voters. I'm not sure that anybody on the board actually looks at those figures because I understand you're busy about the big things, windmills and that sort of thing. There is a serious problem with the way you handle customers. It took me six months of ongoing badgering Contact to actually look at the fact that they have confused three properties' accounts completely.
Even when, at six months' point, they sent someone out to have a look and who confirmed that it was con..i t was incorrect, one of those properties being vacant, so it can't be charged usage. It took a while for Contact to fix it. I'm saying there is a serious problem at Contact. Bullying is not helping. Bullying customers is not helping. When a customer, a shareholder of Contact is not wanting to have their broadband and electricity with Contact, something is very, very wrong. I'm asking you in future to say how many have left during the year accurately, how many complaints you've had during that year, because this is an indictment. There are other people saying we can't get through, and it's absolutely outrageous that you're saying you're doing the best for your customers because it's not so. Thank you.
Thank you. Well, I'm just disappointed that you haven't had a good experience, but I do wanna address a couple of the comments you've made. The number of additional customers this year for power was, I think, Mike, 20,000?
Yeah.
A larger number for broadband as well. I'll get Mike to talk about the consumer survey, but there are many other instances where our customer service was recognized. I think in any service industry around New Zealand in the past year has been a very, very challenging environment, both with COVID, particularly Omicron as it came through, as well as just the general staff shortages the economy is experiencing. At the end of the day, you've had your experience, and thank you for sharing it with us. Matt Bolton, who's the head of retail and some of his team is here today, so I'd encourage you to talk to them. In terms of reporting customer losses or things like that, we'll take that on board.
We're working again to refine the integrated report. Those sort of statistics, you know, are things we'll have to think about in that as well.
Thank you for saying that you're disappointed. Simon?
Can I-
Is it working?
Sorry.
Can you hear me better now?
Yeah.
I can hear the backlog. Okay. Thank you for being disappointed in what happened to me, but I am sorry to tell you, Mr. McDonald, a letter was sent to you, signature required letter, asking for your help. It never received a response. Mr. Bolton had written me a lovely letter, very nice. When I tried to get back to him, he was away. I'm still waiting for him to be back in town, back in Auckland, but I still haven't heard from him.
Okay. Well, we'll make sure that Mr. Bolton connects with you today. Thank you.
I know. This shouldn't be happening. This should not be happening. Customers deserve Contact, not six months wait and not promises and not no response from the chair when someone takes the trouble to say, "Hey, something is very wrong.
Okay. Thank you. We hear you. Are there any other questions from the floor? Over here. Thank you.
Yes. You mentioned about, battery storage. Can you just let us know what the nature of the batteries are?
These are what are referred to as grid-scale batteries. I think the first example of that in the region is actually in Adelaide after they had a grid collapse a few years ago, and I believe they've installed a large-scale grid site with Tesla. We're seeing more and more of that around the world now. The only sort of impediment. That's sort of reared its head is that the price of lithium has become quite elevated. When you're in a position like New Zealand where you've got tremendous renewables now, you've got great baseload with geothermal, grid-scale batteries probably sit out there a bit or been pushed out a bit further by that price. It's fair to say we've done a lot of work on it.
We're actually progressing consenting a site as well. In terms of pressing the button, we're sort of trying to get a better sense of where the price of lithium might go in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you. My name is Ray Williams, shareholder. It's a generalized question, and I don't know how you can answer it, but I'm asking anyway. Is any consideration being given now to supplying curbside electricity? We're moving to EVs. I notice a neighbor runs a cable across the footpath, and up in Scandinavia it's reasonably common to supply curbside electricity to warm your motor in the winter. With so many people having parking on roadsides, is there any move towards providing that or are you considering that?
Let me tell you a brief story. The board pre-COVID went for an educational visit overseas and actually we visited a company in Germany that was involved where they were installing power plugs through the streetlights through Kensington in London, which has the highest population of on-street Tesla parking in the world. But in the context of New Zealand, we're seeing a really good growth of charge sites around in places like shopping centers and you know obviously starting to appear at petrol stations as well. The reality is, New Zealand has the most off-street parking in the world. New Zealanders have the most garages in the world. I think in terms of density, it's pretty unlikely.
We'll see it as it's starting to develop in other cities in the world, but their population density is so much higher than ours.
Less and less people are using garages now for parking cars. Like in a lot of overseas countries, the garage is not for parking cars. I think some consideration should be given to that. It is done, and we're gonna have more and more EV cars. I'm fortunate I've got a garage so I can have a power supply there. But you know, times are changing and you should be considering things like this, I think.
Yeah. I think we'll see that develop before we see just randomly around streets. We'll see it in parking buildings or in office buildings or in apartment buildings and all those sort of things where people don't have garages. Anyway. Yeah, I hear you. Thank you.
Obviously, it's too hard for you.
Jenny, shareholder. I note each year as Contact's gone through the years, the annual report, or let's call it an integrated report, keeps growing and, lots of pretty pictures, but sometimes you wonder if some of the information in there is actually relevant or needed and, if it could be trimmed down a little bit. Just to give you an example, not picking on the directors, but you've just had a review from Korn Ferry. Is it Korn Ferry? Korn Ferry review on the directors' skills of current skills. But there's no look at the strategic, where it fits in with Contact26. There's a whole page on skills, but there's only four pillars, but there's no correlation. One wonders why you didn't put the four pillars in and then, correlate that to what the directors' skills are.
It's just one area that you could maybe refine. There's a lot of others as well, but that's just one.
Yeah. Thanks for that feedback. I hear you in respect of length and I think one of our focuses in the coming year is to just make sure that the readability of that report is improved.
On that note, when you look at strategic stuff and readability, it's also manageability as well, because just on the directors alone, the four pillars, growing demand, developing renewable energy and decarbonizing and providing outstanding customer experience, who within all the board has that experience? That actually can be managed as well within that report. It's looking at chunks of where we can actually make it readable, but actually the skill set matches or the figures actually match.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. There any other questions from the floor? Okay, we have a question online. How secure is our gas supply and how will domestic supply be affected? Our gas is domestically sourced, and we receive advance notice on how much gas we will receive in the coming 12 months. We'll be able then to manage risks around lower deliveries by sourcing alternative fuels. Mike, did you wanna add any further to that?
Yeah, look, gas supply has been obviously a topic of some discussion over the last few years, in particular with the problems on the Pohokura field. We have been fortunate in that we have secure contracts out to 2025. We continue to monitor that situation. As I alluded to in my own speech, we have the Ahuroa gas facility, which allows us to get ahead of that game. The other thing which we're able to do is obviously in discussions with large users like Methanex, is flex the gas between summer and winter. We're very confident on that position.
Okay. The next question is: I've seen the maintenance expenses involved in operating wind turbine generation, which I feel are high. From Contact's experience, can you comment on the maintenance expenses of operating geothermal, hydro, and wind as a percentage of output? Well, we actually don't have any experience in operating wind, so we can't comment on that. The operating costs for hydro and geothermal are as low as NZD 15 a megawatt. This includes maintenance costs and other cost of goods, including transmission costs. It's about a tenth of the cost of operating thermal generation. I should say that doesn't include capital cost.
No. Look, from my own experience, wind new build wind should be of the same order of magnitude as geothermal and hydro. One of the things that's really important there, if any assets are not well-maintained, it can get away from you very quickly, and that's why our asset management process as a company and our seeking of ISO 55000 in that regard is so important. It's any asset you own, if you don't look after it well, the operating costs will get away on you.
Okay, the next question is: What is expected to occur with Tiwai Point aluminium smelter and the impact on Contact? Also, what may impact Contact's actions and income if Tiwai shuts down along with if Lake Onslow occurs? I'll answer that all back to front. I think Lake Onslow is a long, long way away when it would finally come to production, if ever. In respect of Tiwai, we're obviously engaged with Tiwai as we look towards 2024. Those discussions have been useful and engaging. We're doing those discussions alone, so we're not part of a consortium in that. I can't tell you whether they will stay or go. That will depend on all, you know, the discussions they have with other parties.
What I can tell you, though, is we are in a different position than we were two years ago. Two years ago, Contact would have been very challenged in getting our power out of the lower South Island. That will not be the case now. Transpower has invested to allow the transmission of power at a greater capacity out of the lower South Island. We're hopeful we would not see the specter of spilling down the river at zero cost power, which could not be extracted from the lower South Island. Mike, did you wanna add any further to that?
No, that's.
Okay. Next question: I know there's been some concerns expressed in the community about solar schemes taking up arable land. Are there ways we can combine solar schemes with buildings or land that cannot be used for food production? Mike, do you wanna?
Yeah, no, look, that's a very good point. The reality is that if you've got high value, highly productive land, then there's no way a farmer's gonna give you a lease to go and put solar panels and take away high value dairy or wine production. The natural market we have will obviously take care of that. Combining solar with both buildings or land that cannot be used, one of the things that people don't realize is that solar panels actually, there's a huge amount of space in the rows between the solar panels. If you've got marginal land, certainly the experience in Australia is that it can be combined very successfully with agriculture and horticulture. Apparently sheep work fine, cattle not so much 'cause they knock it over.
Goats definitely not because they jump on the panels. Buildings, large scale warehouses, those are obviously opportunities. Yes, solar by definition, it will only be attracted to land that doesn't have higher valued uses.
Thanks, Mike. Next question is: Do you think the impacts of Omicron COVID have had reduced now? And what resilience would be and anticipated for business interruptions going forward? Given the ongoing variants, how to maintain productivity among teams, given interruptions with COVID sickness and managing that type of things going forward in the future. The impacts of Omicron certainly have receded. Although we understand that there is a little bit of growth in cases. What we're clearly seeing is on our construction sites, we're starting to see ourselves well beyond the quite challenging periods in the middle of the winter for productivity on those sites. We're seeing much better productivity going forward. Look, I think I would say quite confidently, we're well-practiced in dealing with COVID as a company. We very much embraced flexible working.
You know, we have staff all around New Zealand, and we're well set up with continuity plans. That said, you know, when those surges of COVID came along, and if they come again, then you literally do have people away from work and unable to work and things such as customer service and productivity on sites. But our focus is absolutely, and very much our risk management programs around our generation sites, and all through COVID, we never missed a beat in generation. They were you know, some quite challenging moments there as well. Next question is: Do you have plans in place to raise the value of Contact shares?
I.e., what's your understanding of the likely impact on share values given actions you're taking, you have in place or expected impacts on the electricity industry? I wanna make it very clear that the actions we take, the investments we make are very much around the long-term future of Contact. When I say that, I say that with shareholders absolutely and very much at the forefront of our mind, in that we are here to grow the long-term value of Contact. We hope that is representative or represented in the share price over time. As you imagine, from month to month, week to week, day to day, the share price moves around. Okay, I think that's.
That is the last online question, Rob.
Thank you, Ru. Are there any more questions on the floor? There's one more. Yeah.
One shareholder.
Oh.
Shareholder, one. I'm just wondering what's the problem with your customers? Isn't Vector responsible for connecting and making sure that each house is connected to the correct electricity?
Um-
Like, you know, they're responsible.
Well-
for having a list of each. 'Cause I had an experience where my electricity completely disappeared, and someone from Vector turned our power off without consulting us. I had to spend six hours on the phone to Wellington sorting it out. I'm just wondering, is there someone at Contact that is actually responsible for connecting with Vector to make sure. I'm not sure what this lady's problem was, but I'm just wondering if that's part of it?
Vector's obviously Auckland-based, but there are many other lines companies and actually I was down in Queenstown a couple of weeks ago and had two power cuts. I'm a Contact customer, so the issue there is when you get power cuts and things, it is ultimately the lines company that's dealing with that. We try and give out bulletins and things like that so to be helpful to customers. In terms of new power or changing your power, that is very much up to us. That is something we own and take responsibility for. Mike, do you wanna add anything?
Yeah. Look, firstly, you know, we do take responsibility, and for those who've had a poor experience, I absolutely apologize. I think that's the first thing. It's the putting right that counts. The electricity industry is complex. That's part of a well set up and well-run market, which allows people to transfer easily, which isn't the case overseas. Sometimes we get that wrong. Sometimes the messaging through to the lines companies falls down, and for that, if we don't get it right, we'll put it right. I do wanna acknowledge also, look, that consumer survey last year, that was a real kick in the teeth for us.
Matt was new to the job, and he has set about over these last 12 months, he and the team have worked incredibly hard to get it right. With those awards, they didn't happen two or three years ago. They're happening now in the last 12 months. We're proud of those, but clearly we have some way to go. Getting it right, making sure it flows smoothly for customers, making sure our service providers, the Vector and the lines companies, that we are all linked up seamlessly, is a journey we're on, and we aim to get it right.
Okay. Any other questions? Okay. As there are no further questions, I now declare the meeting closed. For those present in the room, I'd like to invite you to stay and join us for morning tea. Please feel free to talk to my fellow directors and members of the Contact senior management during this time. We will all be wearing name badges and look very much forward to the opportunity to talk with you. If you have any customer service questions or would like to sign up as a customer, Matt and some of the members of the team are here and more than happy to help. Thank you very much for your attendance and continued support of Contact. I wish you a safe journey home.