The COVID-19 Pandemic forced Genesis Energy to dust off the emergency management plan they had hoped they’d never have to use. As New Zealand’s biggest power company, hundreds of thousands of households, hospitals, and other critical services rely on Genesis for their electricity.

Classified as an essential service during lockdown, the risk that Genesis’ critical operations and maintenance staff might get sick and be unable to maintain and operate its power plants across the country was a prospect they had to address when the pandemic started to take hold in late March.

Genesis Power Schemes General Manager, Scott Westbury, said that the staff who manage their power plants are highly skilled engineers and operators who cannot easily be replaced if they were to get sick, and supporting their health and wellbeing is vital.

“We talked to Wilderness about supplying us motorhomes that we could park up at our power plants while we were on Level-4 high alert. If the virus became prevalent in the community, we could keep our staff safe on site, and ensure that the nation’s power supply was not interrupted.”