Electricity Engineers Association Conference NZ

Entec had the privilege of hosting an exhibition stand and meeting a large number of industry players at the recent Electricity Engineers’ Association conference at the (almost) new and very shiny conference centre Te Pae in Christchurch.

The EEA annual conference is the premier event for New Zealand’s electrical engineering community, with great representation from across the industry sectors including power generation, transmission, distribution and large electricity consumers.

The challenge facing us all in the industry is simply represented by the oft-quoted “energy trilemma”; the need to find balance between energy reliability, energy affordability and energy sustainability.

To put it even more simply, New Zealand needs to significantly increase the volume of electricity that we generate, transmit and distribute to consumers. And the approach must be quick, reliable, cost-effective and sustainable so that our small economic base can actually afford to get this done.

In an effort to contribute towards the sustainable energy industry trend, we are using some smart thinking when providing our services across the country.

Entec's Decarbonsation Efforts

Pre-Fabricated Plant Rooms (PPR)

Previous readers of the Entec news updates will know that we believe Prefabricated Plant Rooms have a significant role to play in this future infrastructure programme. Prefabricated Plant Rooms (fondly referred to within Entec as “PPR’s” and also known in the industry as E-houses, Mobile Plant Rooms and Prefab Substations) are a terrific way of deploying new electrical infrastructure while saving time and money. And reducing safety risk by minimising travel and remote work. Oh, and also reducing carbon emissions along the way.

Entec has been designing, building and installing Prefabricated Plant Rooms since 2017. With more than 30 rooms delivered to date, and another 6 currently in production, we believe we’re at the forefront here in New Zealand. Our rooms to date have varied in size and configuration from 20’ ISO containers, through to 5m x 13m steel portal/cladded structures. They’ve been installed into power generation and distribution applications, and into industrial sites in the water, ports, fertiliser, cement, gas production and mining industries.

Entec builds all of its Prefabricated Plant Rooms at our facility in New Plymouth, where they are Factory Acceptance Tested prior to delivery to site. With FAT already completed, site installation is a relatively simple task and the new infrastructure is ready for commissioning, with the minimal amount of site construction hours. In our very tight labour market this is a further advantage; reducing the nights spent away from home for a very busy workforce.

Learn more about our PPR's

EEA Feedback

We unveiled our new PPR scale model at the EEA show, depicting a 40’ ISO container in cut-away form, and a 6m x 2.5m insulated panel building, both based on recent projects. Both models stand on steel base-frames to facilitate under-floor cable entry.

The EEA attendees were a very focused and engaged audience. We had numerous detailed conversations and have spent the past few weeks with a number of further follow-ups. It was great to meet so many interested people over a 2.5 day time span.

We’re already looking forward to the 2024 EEA conference.