What's your job about?
Powerco is the largest electrical distributor by area and second-largest gas distributor in New Zealand.
The graduate program involves rotating into different teams to gain experience into different aspects of energy distribution. My current rotation is in the Engineering Services team. Here I have been involved with a few projects that require me to take a deep look at the reliability and probability of failure for our assets. One of the projects is for a DC battery in our zone substations, where I used Markov chain analysis to help me analyse the probabilities and reliability of the DC battery. Although I have a background in electrical/electronic, I had an opportunity to carry through one of my projects from my past rotation in Asset Fleet which was more of a mechanical project. For this project we are looking into Aeolian vibration on our conductors and have installed devices to gather data and later analyse this. This was a cool opportunity as it allowed me to learn something outside of my knowledge and it allowed me to get a lot of field experience.
What's your background?
I was born in India. We moved here to New Zealand in 2009, where I have done most of my studies starting from year 6. I come from a country where engineering and the medical field is very common and highly pursued, which is one of the reasons that made me look towards the engineering and medical industry in year 13.
However, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue until the end of year 13 where after talking to a few people and seeing their experiences with marine engineering I decided to take mechatronics. During my first year of university, I realised that I was better at electrical compared to any other papers, tying that with the fact that my family is full of engineers or different fields I decided to do something that no one in my family had done and pursue electrical engineering.
During my final year after applying for many roles I was offered my current role. I started in this role early 2023 after graduating and will continue to rotate through different teams to find what my interests are and my strengths.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes. Although having an electrical background may be beneficial, but we have a few graduates who are mechatronics engineers who are able to do this job. There are many people who come from other disciplines and have gained an interest in this industry who are now well respected in their space. So yes, anyone can do this job as long as they are willing to learn, have a “can-do” attitude and are interested in this field.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
One of the biggest perks at Powerco is the flexible working hours, this allows me to balance my work with my other interests like cricket, squash etc. My role includes both office work and site visit, this is really helpful as I am someone who learns by physically looking at something and seeing it work in person. Everyone is so helpful and willing to guide you to someone who can help if they are not able to help me themselves, this is awesome as it allows me to gain much needed knowledge from field experts who have got many years of experience.
What are the limitations of your job?
Each rotation is only 3-6 months, which is sometimes not enough for some rotations as you might be interested in projects that are a bit longer, but the rotation period limits some of those options. Although in saying that you can still carry over some work into another rotation if it is possible. Although you get to go onto the field from time to time you might not necessarily be able to get hands on with a lot of the equipment as they require a certain level of qualification, so may not be right for someone who is looking to get their hands dirty.
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