Watch a webinar from November 2025 outlining Te Kanapu and the work to date
In 2020, Transpower published Whakamana i Te Mauri Hiko, a paper that examined five possible scenarios for our country’s energy future. It set out the opportunity for Aotearoa to decarbonise our energy mix through electrification – switching the energy households and businesses use to renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. Whakamana i Te Mauri Hiko was also a call to action for policy makers and the energy sector to rise to the challenge of enabling electrification.
Five years on, as expected, our context has shifted. Our Te Kanapu positioning paper describes the changed context for Transpower since Whakamana i te Mauri Hiko and introduces our new initiative to develop and deliver a “grid blueprint” for the future. When complete, the future grid blueprint will provide a guide for our transmission infrastructure investment to 2050 and beyond.
‘Kanapu’ means both ‘lightning’ and ‘bright’. Lightning as the raw form of electricity is a key symbol on the pou whakairo (carving) in the entrance hall at Waikoukou, Transpower’s head office. ‘Te Kanapu’ speaks about the electrification and illumination of our country and Transpower’s goals for a bright, energised future.