We’re looking for your feedback on what The Lines Company currently spends on managing the network and investing in our community. Your responses will help us prioritise projects and allocate resources in the right areas at the right time to improve our business, systems and network.

Priorities, investment and network spend are captured in our Development and Delivery Plan. This document is available on our website here OR continue with this eight minute survey.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND OUTREACH

TLC currently invests $900,000 per year in community support through various initiatives including sponsorships, scholarships, trainee programmes, energy education and the Maru Energy Trust*.

*Maru installs insulation and heat pumps in cold damp homes. TLC funds Maru by $450,000 each year. Every Maru dollar can get up to $9 from the Government (EECA) as part of their Warmer Kiwi Homes Programme which means that $450k can turn into around $4.5m of investment in insulation in the houses in the region.

Please rank how much the statement below resonates with you.

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* 1. The current level of funding TLC provides towards community support is appropriate.

SUSTAINABILITY AND INVESTMENT IN FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

TLC invests in business practices and innovation to improve efficiencies and community initiatives (such as solar, EV charging). This supports our commitment to enabling decarbonisation* and alternative energy, and helps our customers take advantage of new technology as it becomes available.

*removal or reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere

Please rank how much the statement below resonates with you.

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* 2. TLC should prioritise the future by enabling opportunities for decarbonisation, helping customers take advantage of alternative energy solutions, and investing in the evolving landscape of the electricity network.

PREPARING THE NETWORK FOR FUTURE GROWTH

Electricity is essential for modern living. We use it everywhere - in our homes, at work, in hospitals and now even in our cars. Industry projections indicate that household and business demand for electricity is increasing. Investment in the network to improve both reliability and capacity is essential to support this demand. A lack of investment would restrict network capacity and compromise regional growth.

Please rank how much the statement below resonates with you.

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* 3. Investment in the electricity network is crucial to support regional growth and meet increasing demand for electricity in households and businesses.

NETWORK INVESTMENT RELATIVE TO OUTAGES

On average, charges for use of TLC’s network make up around 40% of monthly retail bills.

There are two kinds of outages – planned and unplanned.
  • With PLANNED outages we can give you a heads up. Generally, we are upgrading, replacing or modernising a piece of equipment and we can’t do that with the power on.
  • UNPLANNED outages are more inconvenient because they happen at any time due to incidents such as a vehicle hitting a power pole or a tree falling.
Investing in our infrastructure will INCREASE the number of PLANNED outages; however, over time network reliability improves and the number of UNPLANNED outages will DECREASE.

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* 4. Please pick the statement below that you agree with most.

RESILIENCE TO NATURAL DISASTERS

TLC invests around $23 million a year to improve network assets. Part of this investment is to help our network better withstand the impact of climate change and other natural disasters. Having a network that is resilient to natural disasters (such as weather, earthquake, flood) costs money; and we need to balance this with our customers’ ability to pay.

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* 5. How important is it that our network can withstand natural disasters?

PERCEPTION

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* 6. How do you perceive TLC today, in terms of reliability and supply of power?

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* 7. Please take a moment to tell us why you rated us this way.

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* 8. How do you perceive TLC today, in terms of its investment into community initiatives, including energy education, community grant programme, scholarships, trainee programmes and Maru Energy Trust*?

*Maru installs insulation and heat pumps in cold homes.

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* 9. Please take a moment to tell us why you rated us this way.

LOOKING FORWARD

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* 10. Please prioritise the areas below, where 1 is the most important and 5 is the least important.

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* 11. Is there anything you would like to include about the full Development and Delivery Plan (DDP*)?

*The DDP is our draft plan detailing our programme of works - how and where we invest in the network and our service delivery. The full plan is available on our website here. Feedback from this survey will help us finalise the plan.

CUSTOMER ADVISORY PANEL

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* 12. Are you part of our Customer Advisory Panel sessions on this topic?

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* 13. If no, and you would like to join our Customer Advisory Panel for future engagement/consultation initiatives, please supply your email address and/or phone number.

Please note: Going forward we will use our Customer Advisory Panel to discuss a range of issues or topics or to bounce ideas off. We won’t call on you more than three or four times a year. Collaboration could be face to face sessions, via email or simple surveys that can be done online.

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