Hideaki Fukutake from Still, an organisation made up of niche companies, collaborations and cultural projects nurtured in a singular ecosystem. Photo / Dean Purcell
Hideaki Fukutake from Still, an organisation made up of niche companies, collaborations and cultural projects nurtured in a singular ecosystem. Photo / Dean Purcell
Shape Group - the power and infrastructure company owned by investor Hideaki Fukutake’s Still - has acquired 100 per cent of backup power company Dependable Power.
Shape and Dependable specialise in backup power systems - including generators, batteries and microgrids with integrated solar and wind power technology.
Still and Fukutakehit headlines late last year when they purchased the World Of Wearable Arts (WoW).
Still has an ambitious aim of acquiring 100 businesses in the next decade and running them with a focus on the next 100 years.
An investment group - with an unconventional approach - prioritising cultural connection and stability over short-term profit - its portfolio also includes Kings Plant Barn, Consult Recruitment, design firm DDMMYY and historic Queenstown hotel Hulbert House.
Shape Group chief executive Andrew Edwards said that unique outlook gave his company the scope and breathing space to focus on moving the backup power industry to a more sustainable high-tech future.
As well as providing backup power through traditional diesel generators Shape was focused on upgrading technology and was using hydrogen-fuelled generators, non-lithium batteries and renewable solar and wind technologies.
“Some of these investments and assets, the pay-back is not immediate,” Edwards said.
But with the main power grid increasingly vulnerable to weather-related disruption it was going to be key to the future security of New Zealand’s power supply.
Shape Group’s team has been working around the clock since the January floods in Auckland to provide backup solutions and get businesses and infrastructure back up and running, Edwards said,
There were lessons to be learned and Shape’s goal was to try to move the whole industry on to more climate-resilient ground with more modern and sustainable backup power solutions.
The purchase of Dependable - which has a long track record in the sector, originally established as Appleby Engineering in 1974 - effectively boosted Shape’s size by 50 per cent, Edwards said.
Shape’s focus on microgrids made it valuable for farms and vineyards and other large-scale commercial operations that were often more vulnerable to disruption to traditional supply.
“A microgrid is a decentralised power system that has some generation capacity - that could be a small wind turbine or solar - combined with batteries and possibly a diesel generator as backup,” Edwards said. “So multiple generation solutions and storage. Storage is the key.”
They also offered solutions for otherwise non-economic land which could be used to generate power and sell to the local community.
Andrew Edwards, CEO of power company Shape Group. Photo / Supplied
Rocket Lab, which runs its launchpad on the far tip of the East Coast on the Mahia Peninsula, is a customer.
Shape was a competitor to the big power companies and decentralised power was a risk to their model, Edwards said.
But the big companies also recognised that there were potential benefits because they currently had to maintain some very uneconomic lines to remote parts of the country.
Decentralisation was going to be an important part of the mix as we moved to meet New Zealand’s growing power needs in a more sustainable way, he said,
“We might not even need to upgrade some of the lines networks we have if we can put in strategic storage solutions that can be that buffer.”
Shape is still small relative to the big power companies, the Dependable deal will see Shape grow to about 100 full-time employees.
But it was now probably the largest New Zealand-owned provider of backup power in the country, with its direct competitors being either Australian or internationally owned.
Still is a family-owned business run from Auckland’s waterfront.
Fukutake’s grandfather Tetsuhiko and father Soichiro founded and oversaw the growth of the Japanese corporate Benesse corporation into one of the world’s largest educational service providers - at one point owning the Berlitz language schools.
Soichiro Fukutake, a billionaire (on the Forbes rich-list Japanese top 50) took up residence in New Zealand in 2009 drawn here initially by his passion for sailing and flying.
Hideaki followed shortly after with his young family and he has watched his children grow up here as Kiwi kids. Now Auckland-based, his father’s retirement sees him managing the Fukutake family investments.
