CPP consultation and engagement

Talking and listening to our customers, stakeholders and community has been a key part of developing our customised price-quality path (CPP) application. We have placed your priorities and long-term interests at the centre of how we plan and make decisions about the future of the local electricity network.


Between August 2024 and April 2026, we worked closely with you to understand what matters most. You consistently told us you expect a network that is safe, reliable and resilient, able to support growth and ready for the future. You also highlighted that affordability was a key concern, and that any investment should be prudent, efficient and clearly justified.

Your feedback has directly shaped our CPP proposal. It influenced decisions about the scope, timing and prioritisation of investment, and led to changes that reduced overall spend compared to earlier plans. This helps to limit future cost increases while maintaining a focus on the safe, reliable and resilient network you value.

You can find out more about our consultation and engagment programme, and what we heard in our CPP Engagement Report



Hear how we've been listening to our customers, what they've told us, and how that feedback is guiding our investment decisions.


Our engagement approach

  • Putting customers at the centre - we placed your priorities and long-term interests at the centre of our investment plans.
  • Building on what we heard - engagement was ongoing, with each phase building on the last, ensuring your feedback informed our decisions at every stage.
  • Using different ways to connect - we used four key activity streams to reach different parts of our community and support meaningful participation:
    • Customer Advisory Panel – community representatives working through key issues and providing informed feedback
    • Powerful Conversations – in-depth community workshops to explore complex topics and test ideas and trade-offs
    • Connected Conversations – forums with business customers, industry and community organisations
    • Community Conversations – broader engagement through advertising, surveys, web and social media, and our Community Update newsletter
  • Helping you take part - we recognise understanding electricity planning can be complex. Our engagement approach focused on building understanding, so customers could provide informed feedback and challenge our thinking.
  • Keeping the community informed - we ran a wide-reaching communications programme to raise awareness and encourage participation from homes and businesses.

Engagement phases


There were four key engagement phases, each building on the previous.

  • Phase 1 – Early engagement - we worked with customers to better understand their needs, priorities and expectations.
  • Phase 2 – Consultation on our initial investment approach - we shared an early investment approach alongside alternative options, including a more limited and an accelerated approach, to explore different levels of investment and trade-offs.
  • Phase 3 – Consultation on our draft investment plan - we sought feedback on our draft plan, including key investment programmes, to test our approach in more detail.
  • Phase 4 – Refinement of the draft investment plan- we refined our proposal based on customer feedback, using what we heard to shape final decisions.

At each phase, customer insights were used to test and challenge our thinking, ensuring our investment decisions reflect what matters most to our community.

CPP engagement phases


What we heard

Throughout consultation and engagement customer feedback was clear:

  • Affordability and bill impacts were a primary concern, alongside strong expectations that any investment should be prudent, efficient, and clearly justified.
  • Customers and stakeholders supported maintaining safety and reliability and strengthening network resilience, particularly in response to growth, electrification, and increasing climate and natural hazard risks.
  • Customers emphasised the importance of transparency, clear trade-offs, and confidence in Orion’s ability to deliver proposed investments.
  • Customers recognised that new technologies and non-network solutions may play a role in supporting affordability and resilience and emphasised the need for a considered and strategic approach.


Key customer insightsWe're confident our CPP investment plan reflects what customers told us matters most—maintaining safety and reliability, strengthening resilience where benefits are clear, and delivering investment efficiently and transparently, while balancing cost and service outcomes over time.

Next steps

We submitted our CPP application to the Commerce Commission on 9 June 2026. They will now check this for compliance, rigorously review it and seek further customer and stakeholder feedback. In setting our customised price-quality path, the Commission will decide whether the investment plan detailed in our application is prudent, efficient and in the best long-term interests of customers. The customised path they set may differ from our application. It will take effect from 1 April 2027.

Talking and listening to our customers, stakeholders and community has been a key part of developing our customised price-quality path (CPP) application. We have placed your priorities and long-term interests at the centre of how we plan and make decisions about the future of the local electricity network.


Between August 2024 and April 2026, we worked closely with you to understand what matters most. You consistently told us you expect a network that is safe, reliable and resilient, able to support growth and ready for the future. You also highlighted that affordability was a key concern, and that any investment should be prudent, efficient and clearly justified.

Your feedback has directly shaped our CPP proposal. It influenced decisions about the scope, timing and prioritisation of investment, and led to changes that reduced overall spend compared to earlier plans. This helps to limit future cost increases while maintaining a focus on the safe, reliable and resilient network you value.

You can find out more about our consultation and engagment programme, and what we heard in our CPP Engagement Report



Hear how we've been listening to our customers, what they've told us, and how that feedback is guiding our investment decisions.


Our engagement approach

  • Putting customers at the centre - we placed your priorities and long-term interests at the centre of our investment plans.
  • Building on what we heard - engagement was ongoing, with each phase building on the last, ensuring your feedback informed our decisions at every stage.
  • Using different ways to connect - we used four key activity streams to reach different parts of our community and support meaningful participation:
    • Customer Advisory Panel – community representatives working through key issues and providing informed feedback
    • Powerful Conversations – in-depth community workshops to explore complex topics and test ideas and trade-offs
    • Connected Conversations – forums with business customers, industry and community organisations
    • Community Conversations – broader engagement through advertising, surveys, web and social media, and our Community Update newsletter
  • Helping you take part - we recognise understanding electricity planning can be complex. Our engagement approach focused on building understanding, so customers could provide informed feedback and challenge our thinking.
  • Keeping the community informed - we ran a wide-reaching communications programme to raise awareness and encourage participation from homes and businesses.

Engagement phases


There were four key engagement phases, each building on the previous.

  • Phase 1 – Early engagement - we worked with customers to better understand their needs, priorities and expectations.
  • Phase 2 – Consultation on our initial investment approach - we shared an early investment approach alongside alternative options, including a more limited and an accelerated approach, to explore different levels of investment and trade-offs.
  • Phase 3 – Consultation on our draft investment plan - we sought feedback on our draft plan, including key investment programmes, to test our approach in more detail.
  • Phase 4 – Refinement of the draft investment plan- we refined our proposal based on customer feedback, using what we heard to shape final decisions.

At each phase, customer insights were used to test and challenge our thinking, ensuring our investment decisions reflect what matters most to our community.

CPP engagement phases


What we heard

Throughout consultation and engagement customer feedback was clear:

  • Affordability and bill impacts were a primary concern, alongside strong expectations that any investment should be prudent, efficient, and clearly justified.
  • Customers and stakeholders supported maintaining safety and reliability and strengthening network resilience, particularly in response to growth, electrification, and increasing climate and natural hazard risks.
  • Customers emphasised the importance of transparency, clear trade-offs, and confidence in Orion’s ability to deliver proposed investments.
  • Customers recognised that new technologies and non-network solutions may play a role in supporting affordability and resilience and emphasised the need for a considered and strategic approach.


Key customer insightsWe're confident our CPP investment plan reflects what customers told us matters most—maintaining safety and reliability, strengthening resilience where benefits are clear, and delivering investment efficiently and transparently, while balancing cost and service outcomes over time.

Next steps

We submitted our CPP application to the Commerce Commission on 9 June 2026. They will now check this for compliance, rigorously review it and seek further customer and stakeholder feedback. In setting our customised price-quality path, the Commission will decide whether the investment plan detailed in our application is prudent, efficient and in the best long-term interests of customers. The customised path they set may differ from our application. It will take effect from 1 April 2027.

Page published: 09 Jun 2026, 01:48 PM