Aurora Energy has reported $11.1M in net profit (for year ended June 30, 2023) and is happy with the progress on the second year of its five-year-long $563M investment programme.

The forecast profit for this year was $9.9M. Last year’s profit was $7.8M, and June 2021 was $0.68M.

The company said the positive result against forecast was driven by higher revenues due to strong residential demand and the removal of some historical pricing structures from April 2023. 

Chief executive Richard Fletcher said the company has completed a significant amount of work over the last couple of years and despite economic inflation and rising costs for labour and materials, they have delivered largely to plan.

“We have now cleared a backlog of higher-risk poles, which is a significant milestone, and continue to bundle work in the same area into larger packages. This means we can minimise the disruption for customers as well as reduce delivery costs,” he said.

There will be a community drop-in event to share results from the annual delivery report on Thursday October 26 (11am -1 pm) at Alexandra Community House on Centennial Ave.

There will be information relevant to the community and Aurora Energy will be available to answer questions.

The annual report, the annual delivery report and the media release can be found on Aurora Energy’s website.

The annual delivery report is a requirement under Aurora Energy’s customised price-quality path (CPP), to outline how they are performing against their plans, following approval from the Commerce Commission in 2021 for the five-year investment programme to undertake essential maintenance and upgrades on the network.

Richard said they were happy with progress and continuing to deliver against the ambitious work programme to upgrade the network.

“A robust and efficient electricity network is central to reducing carbon emissions through electrification and that’s why our investment programme is so important.”

Capital expenditure of $99.3M (it was $83.0M in 2022) went to new network assets in Central Otago, Dunedin, Wānaka and Queenstown during the year.