Heath Coleman - Beyond the Grid

For Heath Coleman, the focus has never been on the milestones themselves, but on what follows, when what has been built continues to grow and take on a life of its own.

Heath is co-founder of Future Energy, one of New Zealand's leading integrated energy companies. He is clear about how they did it: a clear sense of purpose, a detailed plan, and the discipline to hold the line when things got hard.

After leaving Saint Kentigern, he began studying architecture, drawn to design and the built environment. Yet it did not take long to realise that what interested him most was not how buildings looked, but how they functioned. Working part-time in an air conditioning business alongside his studies, he found himself increasingly drawn to the systems behind the spaces, how energy moved, where inefficiencies sat, and why buildings that appeared well designed did not always perform as they should.

"I found it frustrating at times," he says. "You'd see buildings designed beautifully but making them work efficiently, that is a different conversation entirely."

That shift, from appearance to performance, became an early turning point. Growing up around his father's civil engineering business, Heath had always been near the practical side of building. What began as familiarity gradually became direction.

As his experience deepened, so too did a broader realisation. Most solutions in the energy space were being approached in isolation. Heating and cooling, hot water, solar, battery storage, electric vehicles, each technology was developing largely in isolation. The opportunity, as Heath saw it, was to look at the whole system rather than its individual components.

That thinking led to the founding of Future Energy in January 2020, at the beginning of a global pandemic, which tested the clarity of purpose behind the idea from almost the first day. Six years on, the company operates across multiple regions with a team of more than 80 people and has consistently ranked among New Zealand's top three residential energy providers, accounting for around 15 to 20 percent of Auckland solar installations last year, while expanding into larger commercial and international projects.

Underlying this growth is a clear focus for the company to electrify everything, not simply as an environmental response, but as a practical shift towards more efficient, resilient, and cost-effective energy systems.

But Heath is quick to redirect the credit.

"If there's one thing that's made the biggest difference, it's the team. You're only as good as the people around you."

It is a perspective shaped well before business entered the picture. Football was a significant part of his years growing up, competing at youth representative level and touring with his club to Argentina, where they played against professional teams. But the lessons that stayed were not about individual success.

“The best teams weren’t always the most talented individually,” he reflects. “They were the ones that worked best, together.”

That idea runs through the culture Future Energy is built on. "A lot of businesses put the customer at the heart of everything," he says. "We've flipped that. We look after our people, and they look after our customers. It's as simple as that."

As Future Energy has expanded, so too has the reach of its work. In Fiji, the company is involved in transitioning remote island resorts away from diesel generation, replacing it with solar and battery systems. The results are tangible, significant reductions in fuel use, lower costs, and improved reliability, but the impact extends further than the systems themselves. Local tradespeople are trained as part of the process, building capability that remains in those communities long after the work is complete.

“It’s not just about what you install,” Heath says. “It’s what stays behind.”

Closer to home, Future Energy's involvement in the Pakuranga Campus’ new Years 12 and 13 building brings that same philosophy back to familiar ground. For Saint Kentigern, it marks a significant step in integrating solar into how the building is powered and for him, one of the more meaningful projects on the books.

The system, comprising 280 solar panels, is expected to generate close to 200,000 kWh of energy each year, enough to support hundreds of homes for a month, while contributing to long-term reductions in both cost and carbon footprint.

Beyond the immediate projects, there is also a growing sense of what is possible. With current technology, developments like this, and future projects such as Wilson Bay Farm, have the potential to move towards fully renewable, self-sustaining systems, with benefits that extend beyond the campus into the wider community.

In this, Saint Kentigern is well placed to show what thoughtful investment in sustainability can look like within education, while supporting wider conversations around energy use in New Zealand.

What once felt aspirational is becoming increasingly achievable, pointing to a different way of thinking about how these spaces are designed and used.

Reflecting on his time at Saint Kentigern, what stands out most for Heath is not a single achievement, but the people. The friendships, the shared experiences, and the network that has endured well beyond college.

“It’s something you don’t fully appreciate at the time,” he says. “But you realise later how important it is.”

With that perspective has come a simple reflection. Not to change direction, but to make more of what is already there in front of you. To get involved, to take hold of opportunities, and to say yes more often.

As his journey suggests, it is often the experiences that seem small at the time that go on to shape what comes next.