In July 2011, a restructure of Queensland’s government-owned electricity generation companies took place, with CS Energy, Tarong Energy, and Stanwell restructuring into two companies CS Energy and Stanwell. This change was designed by the state government to improve competitiveness within the industry.
CEO of Stanwell Richard Van Breda joined the company in 2003 and has led the company’s recent restructuring. It certainly has been an interesting part of the role, looking at the diverse cultures and making sure that we are all focusing on the right things, and evolving and changing the culture so that we do become one Stanwell.
”The restructure of the state’s generators was very significant because it meant that we were dealing with three distinct corporate cultures. Immediately after the restructure, we had close to 1,200 roles in the organisation, based at a range of different sites. As you can imagine in a large industrial business, each of those sites also has its own culture. So its been really important to focus on the right things and really drive our values and our strategies so that people are aware of what we want to achieve.”
Stanwell has been going through some major changes as of late, particularly as the company diversified from its core electricity generation business. ”We just could not continue to compete purely as a generation business in such a challenging market, so we had to evolve the business. We had to make sure that we were more flexible, more nimble, and more responsive to the market. What were seeing in the electricity market at the moment is an oversupply. There is competition from large vertically integrated players like Origin and AGL, and competition from subsidised renewables such as solar and wind farms. We needed to make sure that we could adapt our business so that we responded to changes in electricity prices and that we were responsive to demand and supply.”