LV Service Pillar Labelling.

Protecting the network with smarter asset ID.

Powerco, one of New Zealand’s largest electricity distributors, needed to streamline maintenance on its low voltage (LV) network.

With over 96,000 unlabelled service pillars, technicians were wasting time locating and identifying assets - even with GIS records. Partnering with Identimark, Powerco rolled out QR-enabled, Rotag™ laser-impregnated aluminium labels to link each asset to live network data.

The result: faster response times, safer work environments, and dramatically improved asset management.

What needed to be solved.

Locating LV assets quickly and accurately is critical for both uptime and safety but Powerco’s unlabelled service pillars were creating confusion. Field crews were wasting valuable time identifying which pillar served which address. Even with GIS records, multiple boxes at a single site made pinpointing the right asset challenging.

In outage situations, this delay directly impacted restoration time and increased operational costs. Adding to the complexity, all labelling solutions had to meet AS/NZS standards and be safe to install near live electrical components..

Key challenges included:

Multiple pillars per site made ID unreliable

Crews lacked instant access to live asset data

Metal fasteners posed safety risks near live gear