Power Factor & Tariff: BoxKraft

Rodger Eaton of BoxKraft, an Auckland based packaging company, had recently acquired a new business and moved into a new site. After a few months at full production, managers were surprised at how much the energy bill had increased. 

Andy Logue of Energy NZ - specialists in Energy Management services - was called in to analyse the problem. “We found a power-quality issue that was leading to significant network penalty charges but could be fixed with a system called power factor correction. The initial $21,000 investment would pay for itself in less than 18 months” says Andy. 

Whilst investigating the issue, Energy NZ consultant Ross Grant, discovered BoxKraft could save another $5,000 a year by switching to a different network tariff which was better suited to their energy-use profile. 

Combining both power factor correction and a change to their network tariff meant BoxKraft would wipe out a quarter of their annual energy bill on an on-going basis.  “That was the cherry on the top”, says Andy.  Results like this aren’t unusual. “If your business has an energy bill of more than $10,000 a month and you don’t know where it’s going, contact an Energy Management specialist,” he says.