Managing Director of TransGrid Peter McIntyre has had a strong focus on transmission engineering throughout his career. ” was an internal appointment to the managing director job in April 2010,” he explains. “I’d previously held three other executive/general-manager roles in the company, covering a range of areas such as asset management, regulatory strategy, and the like; so I’ve had a very broad experience in the industry and the company.”
Peters first three years as managing director have been challenging due to the external environment continually changing in unforeseeable ways. “When I came into the role, we were in an industry where the future was reasonably predictable and thrived on technical excellence, efficiency, and ongoing continuous innovation, he highlights. Since then, there’s been a tremendous upswirl of public and political concern around power prices.”The causes of those have been things outside the transmission sector. There have been a number of factors driving up prices; we’re largely a fairly small contributor to those prices.
”Around New South Wales, we technically represent 7 to 8 per cent of the end-user bill, but there has been intense political and media focus on price rises generally driven from networks, but also other factors like carbon pricing and wholesale pricing, such as the cost of solar schemes put in by state governments, and the like. As a network, we’ve actually been criticised and are very much the focus of that debate. It’s been a very difficult environment trying to build as well as trying to run our business as best we can. I think the sector has generally suffered a loss of social trust. That has been the most challenging thing for the company.”
