Energy sectors all over the world are racing to decarbonise – and as the market navigates this fundamental shift, the key to success is support from a team you can trust.
As the energy sector evolves, the demand for smarter, faster, and more reliable ways to operate has never been greater.
For companies at the forefront of generation and trading, innovation isn’t just about technology – it’s about unlocking efficiency, reducing risk, and enabling better decisions in a rapidly shifting market.
Across the industry, sophisticated software is transforming the way energy is scheduled, traded, and managed.
From forecasting tools and compliance systems to complex outage scheduling and data visualisation, digital solutions are now the backbone of operational excellence.
But getting it right in a complex, evolving energy market is no small feat. The technology must adapt to unique market rules, integrate seamlessly with existing systems, and adapt as needs change. That’s why partnerships built on trust, agility and deep sector knowledge have become essential.
A long-term collaboration
Meridian Energy, one of New Zealand’s largest electricity generators, operates wind and hydro assets across the country – and its wholesale team are responsible for asset scheduling, real‑time trading, and compliance works in one of the most complex electricity markets in the world.
More than a decade ago, Meridian partnered with YouDo to tackle the challenges of manual, error‑prone processes and disconnected systems.
Since then, the two companies have developed more than ten customised tools, each designed to streamline specific aspects of the wholesale team’s work.
Meridian Energy Chief Information Officer, Edna Maddocks, said that the trust Meridian Energy placed in YouDo as a flexible, outcome‑focused delivery partner underpinned their achievements.
From then on, YouDo became a delivery partner behind some of Meridian’s most successful wholesale projects
According to Meridian Head of Wholesale Development, Sarah Smith, “By aligning on hours, goals, and quality targets, YouDo contributed to some of the most successful projects we ran for the wholesale team, and across Meridian.”
This long-term collaboration began with a small idea; to build a dashboard that provided clear, real‑time operational insights, followed by a small trading tool.
Building on that foundation, the teams delivered an outage management tool that performed so well it set a repeatable pattern for how they’d work together.
From there the scope expanded: generation asset control, outage scheduling, risk management, forecasting, and other market-facing applications replaced labour-intensive spreadsheets with integrated, automated workflows.
YouDo Founder, Greig Robertson, explained that this shift mattered because spreadsheets are very prone to error and bugs and there’s no kind of formal process around testing them.
Consistency and usability proved decisive. Meridian said through these new workflows it saw faster decision-making, stronger compliance, and efficiency gains that in many cases paid back the investment within months.
Most recently, the teams delivered the user interface for Ruakākā BESS, which is set to be New Zealand’s first large-scale, grid-connected battery. This reflected a broader wave of work across battery storage and virtual batteries for YouDo.
“Batteries are small compared with hydro stations, but you need the same, if not more, brain power to trade them – and if we can help make the trading process simpler then that’s what we want to do,” Mr Robertson said.
For Mr Robertson, some of the most challenging efforts were also the most rewarding.
He said that one standout was the project for the financial transmission rights (FTR) market: a complex domain distilled, with Meridian, into a simple user interface and a repeatable process that delivered immediate, tangible benefits.
A partnership built for the future
As the energy market changed over the years, Meridian found itself in need of new solutions to accommodate that change, and bringing YouDo in as a partner on that journey allowed both companies to grow and innovate together.
Mr Robertson said that YouDo’s focus isn’t just to do one project per customer and then wash their hands of it. Technology is constantly evolving and your software needs to grow as your business grows – and the key continuous innovation is longstanding collaboration.
“With a long-term partnership it’s all about trust,” he said.
“Meridian is putting its trust in us to take their requirements and turn them into something real. And we trust Meridian to interact with us and tell us where we’re going right as well as where we’re going wrong – and be honest about it.”
What sets this collaboration apart is how closely the teams work together. YouDo’s developers operate as part of Meridian’s project teams, following agile methods with daily stand-ups, sprints, and planning sessions to align every step of the way.
This approach allows for flexibility when priorities shift and ensures that tools are always designed to fit Meridian’s ways of working. As a result, YouDo can deliver value quickly – without compromising on quality.
Ms Maddocks explained that the flexible mentality that YouDo brings is what makes this partnership so instrumental.
“I think there’s an element of trust both from Meridian and YouDo sides – and it worked,” she said.
The custom-built tools developed through this partnership have given Meridian’s wholesale team the ability to navigate market complexity with clarity and speed. By automating processes and delivering real-time insights, the solutions have strengthened compliance, reduced administrative load and freed staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
With more innovation on the horizon, the relationship continues to evolve – ensuring Meridian remains competitive in a market where adaptability and foresight are key.
As the global energy sector powers towards a renewable future, technology alone isn’t enough to take us to net zero. It’s the combination of the right tools, the right people and the right partnership that truly powers innovation.
“We don’t have any different technology to anyone. We just really see the in value having people [work with each other] … and we want to let our customers shine,” Mr Robertson said.
“There’s no secret sauce for YouDo – we just try to go in there do a good job.”
For more information, visit youdo.io/au/home
