Counties Energy and Unison reach first milestone in strategic collaboration
Unison Networks (Unison) and Counties Energy have reached their first milestone in their strategic collaboration, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in January to jointly develop standardised network capabilities for the benefit of consumers.
The partnership focuses on three key workstreams: driving efficiency through shared digital capability, automating connection assessments, and strengthening aligned asset management approaches.
Today, the companies announced a major achievement under the MoU – the successful development and alignment of standardised hosting capacity capability for both load and generation. This work includes standardising the calculations used to determine hosting capacity at both feeder and low voltage distribution levels, along with aligning the underlying data models, low voltage (LV) analytics (powered by GridSight), and data processing methodologies.
Together, these improvements help ensure customers and industry partners receive clear, consistent and reliable information across both networks. Standardised hosting capacity maps enable communities to make more informed decisions about new connection investments, including Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), and represent a first step toward greater network transparency and maximising the value of the investments consumers have made in DERs.
Unison GM Networks and Operations, Gagan Chadha, says this milestone sets the foundation for a broader transformation of customer‑facing digital tools.
“This is just the first step of collaboration between our organisations, and both teams have worked incredibly hard to reach this milestone. By aligning our methodologies, we are paving the way for greater standardisation and scalability which helps create a more consistent, efficient experience for customers as electrification accelerates.”
Counties Energy Chief Network and Digital Officer, Moonis Vegdani, says customer involvement will be key as the new tools evolve.
“Our teams have collaborated closely to deliver this milestone in standardised capacity mapping across networks, thereby reducing manual work and delivering faster, more transparent connection assessments. Now we’re focused on ensuring the tools continue to evolve in ways that genuinely benefit customers. We’re encouraging customers, developers and installers across both networks to start using the hosting capacity maps and share their feedback with us. This is an evolving capability, and their real‑world insights will help us refine and enhance the system to best meet the needs of our customers and communities.”
Both teams will work together with GridSight to create a comprehensive roadmap for the next twelve months, focusing on a consistent front-end experience, implementing automated assessments of connections, and setting dynamic export limits.
Leveraging Unison’s strength in asset management and Counties Energy’s knowledge in low-voltage visibility and flexibility, the partnership is creating a modern low-voltage network. This includes developing next-generation architecture focused on monitoring and control, learning from the Franklin Energy Sharing Pilot, and using the Gridex flexibility platform for shared flexible connections. These efforts result in a more reliable low-voltage network, dynamic export limits, and clearer information for customers and industry stakeholders deploying solar, EV chargers, and batteries.
By taking a unified and forward‑looking approach, Unison and Counties Energy aim to deliver safer, more reliable and cost‑efficient electricity services for their communities well into the future.
View the capacity maps here :
https://capacity.countiesenergy.co.nz/
and
https://www.unison.co.nz/i-need-to/get-connected/available-network-capacity/