12.Bill Heaps

Bill was previously Managing Director of our associated firm, Strata Energy Consulting Limited. Bill has held a directorship of Orion Group (a NZ electricity distributor), and was Chairman of d‑cypha Limited (now EMS Limited) during the period in which it was the Reconciliation Manager for the New Zealand electricity industry. Bill is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.

Bill has 32 years experience, which spans the electricity supply chain.  He has worked on the implementation of electricity markets in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand and has practical experience of the Australian markets. He has also been involved with energy market developments across the Asia Pacific and India.  Bill has presented many papers on electricity market topics both in New Zealand and internationally.

Whilst much of Bill’s experience is in the commercial sector of the industry, he has also held executive roles in both generation and transmission.  He managed the largest New Zealand geothermal power stations through the transition from public to private ownership and was responsible for significant reductions in operating costs and increases in performance.  Bill was also Commercial Manager for Transpower, New Zealand’s national grid owner and system operator.

Bill has undertaken a number of projects involving assessment of capital and operational expenditure budgets of transmission and distribution network companies.  This includes Asset Management Plan reviews of all 29 NZ distributors, and major technical advisory projects to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) advising on regulatory capex and opex allowances, as well as similar work for the Singapore Energy Markets Authority (EMA).  Bill also played  major role in assisting Western Power to revise its Applications and Queuing Policy, to facilitate new generator connections.

Bill currently chairs the Transmission and Wholesale Market Advisory Groups for the New Zealand Electricity Commission and chairs the Technical Support Group for the Electricity Commission’s Wind Generation Investigation Project.