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WEL Networks Customers to Benefit from Top Energy Consultant

Monday 8 February 2010, 10:52AM

By WEL Networks

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Malcolm Souness WEL Networks Energy Management Engineer
Malcolm Souness WEL Networks Energy Management Engineer Credit: WEL Networks

WELLINGTON

WEL Networks is committing to helping its customers improve energy usage and has created a new staff position dedicated to the task.

Highly regarded energy consultant, Malcolm Souness, has been appointed to the position of Energy Management Engineer at WEL Networks.

Malcolm spent the last six years managing his Wellington-based energy consulting firm, Rural Energy, where he primarily assisted large farming operations to increase energy efficiency.

At WEL Networks, Mr Souness will concentrate his initial efforts on working with the company’s industrial clients in the manufacturing and food processing industries.

For the past 12 months, Mr Souness’ main consulting contract was with biogas company, Natural Systems.

Through this client, he worked with Landcorp dairy farms and was responsible for helping dairying operations decrease on-farm energy usage by 9% on average. He also assisted with the development of on-farm biogas generation.

Prior to this, Mr Souness was employed by Energy and Technical Services in Wellington.

There he worked on a team that provided energy management, procurement, project management, and facility management services. As part of his role, he was responsible for electricity procurement for 19 of the country’s 21 district health boards, purchasing 200GWh of electricity for those organisations.

Mr Souness has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a Master’s in Engineering and Management from the University of Canterbury.Mr Souness has previously written a monthly column on the topic of energy usage on dairy farms for national journal, Dairying Today.

His expert comment on rural energy issues has also been sought after by television journalists and other print media