Transpower turns to advertising

Smarting under the brunt of opposition to its national grid upgrade plans, Transpower has launched an advertising campaign designed to increase support for its proposals.

The state-owned enterprise is in the midst of planning for a new 400 kV line of pylons connecting the south Waikato to south Auckland.

Public meetings this year became heated affairs, with local residents burning effigies and threatening to blow up pylons.

Transpower chief executive Ralph Craven was also the target of personal death threats.

Now, for the first time, it has launched an advertising campaign to try to improve its public image.

"Think beyond the switch," says its new advertisements, which appeared in newspapers for the first time last weekend, showing a young girl turning on a light switch.

"Every day, in thousands of ways, we are touched by the power of electricity. The power behind business and everyday life is transported throughout New Zealand by the national grid. Your grid."

Transpower is completing the exact placement of its Waikato pylons, saying if it did not move quickly the line could not be finished by 2010, even if it got Electricity Commission approval next year.

Spokesman Chris Roberts said the advertisements would run in newspapers and magazines, mostly this month.

"It is quite literally to get people to 'think beyond the switch' - to understand our homes, businesses and communities all rely on a secure, reliable supply of electricity and that comes to us via the national grid."

Roberts said the advertisements were also designed to let people know that Transpower needed to make significant investment in the grid.

He would not say how much the campaign cost.

* Auckland City Council-appointed commissioners are next week due to consider a Transpower application to increase the current running through its 220kV line that runs from Otahuhu to Henderson.

Transpower has asked for permission to temporarily increase the amount of current during winter.