Completed in early 2026, Taupō East Substation is one of the largest single projects Unison Networks has ever undertaken, built to support industrial growth in northern and central Taupō with a shared network budget exceeding $18 million. When a project of that scale needs metering units that don't exist in any catalogue, off-the-shelf isn't an option.
Unison and their design consultants came to us with a challenge: ground-mounted metering units for the new substation that could accommodate an unusually demanding cable arrangement, with multiple large cables terminating on each phase. Nothing in our standard range, or anyone else's, was a straight fit. These would end up being among the biggest metering units TWS has ever built.
What followed was a genuine design partnership. Over several months, our team worked side by side with the consultant's power systems engineers and Unison's project engineers, iterating through the details that make or break an installation: cable entries and terminations, clearances, enclosure configurations, foundation loadings, and material and finish options traded off against cost and durability. We shared full 3D models directly into their design environment so the units could be proven against the substation layout before a single sheet of steel was cut, and adapted quickly as requirements evolved, at one point redesigning the cable arrangement and shrinking the unit's footprint within days of the request.
That's the part of custom manufacturing that rarely makes the datasheet. Designing and building in Christchurch means our sales engineers sit metres from the workshop and our technical team, so questions get answered in hours, drawings get revised overnight, and the customer is never waiting on an offshore factory to respond. For infrastructure that will serve the Taupō region for decades, that collaboration up front is what delivers a unit that installs cleanly and performs from day one.
The units were manufactured at our Christchurch facility and supplied for the substation build, which nearly doubles capacity for Taupō's industrial areas and strengthens supply for the wider community. We're proud to have TWS equipment at the heart of it.
At TWS, custom isn't a compromise. It's what we're built for.
