Queries Highlight Energy Savings

IT would be interesting to find out from Energy Minister David Parker what power would be saved if the five most-used light bulbs in houses were replaced by approved fluorescent ones, all cold homes were retrofitted with insulation, solar hot water cylinders, double- glazing, thermal drapes, cylinder “wraps” and draught excluders.

It would be helpful to give examples using dams such as “five fluorescent light bulbs in our 1.5 million homes save the equivalent of the output of the Clyde dam, or Project Aqua” . Would you also ask why, using the Meridian “right house” model, the retrofitting couldn’t be paid through the power account at the same level and tariff as, say, last month’s account so that it is fiscally neutral and doesn’t require subsidies except for those households that need a hand up? Would you also ask if the price per kWh the householder paid on January 1 this year could be the permanent price for the “block” of power (reflecting the energy used in, for instance, an autumn account) which reflects the investment by the householder in “negawatts” ? If the household chose to use more power than that available within the “block” , the price could increase considerably to reflect the need to provide more expensive energy. If the household saves more within the “block” those negawatts are available to the household at a modest rate, a reward for positive initiatives to take the pressure off our lakes and rivers.

A megawatt saved is a negawatt.

More information about them is available on the internet. The present power-saving campaign is a modest example. The savings need to be locked in permanently to be worthwhile, however, hence “block” pricing.

The $10 billion — yes billion — (and rising) that will be needed to pay for industrial wind farms do not deliver warm, healthy homes, reduce power prices, ease the pressure on the national grid, improve our wasteful behaviour, save health dollars or the environment.

You might ask the minister what the carbon savings would be nationally if we did the above … and that would just be for starters.

Chris Henderson, Lumsden Abridged. — Editor Energy Minister David Parker replies: Chris Henderson asks how much power would be saved if all homes improved their energy efficiency and conservation through measures such as replacing light bulbs, insulation, solar water heating and so on.

It’s not easy to come up with a single number because every house in New Zealand is in a different state, but it comes to a large total. For example, if you replace the five most used light bulbs (all 100 watts) in a house with CFLs (20 watts), each household would save in the order of 400 kWh a year. If every one of New Zealand’s 1.47 million houses did that, we would save about a third of the annual electricity generation of the Clyde dam (assuming the dam runs at full capacity half the year). Research shows about 70 percent of New Zealanders have already replaced some bulbs, but the potential savings figure is still high.

It’s the same with insulation and solar water heating — both deliver significant savings, but houses built in the past 30 years are already at least partially insulated and some homes do not have the north-facing roofs where solar water heating works best. There’s also the human factor, as home owners and landlords have to choose to invest money in retrofitting their properties to save energy.

Incentives do help. The Government now subsidises solar hot water heating and many thousands of retrofits each year.

Your correspondent questions why retrofits couldn’t be paid for through the power account. Already, a couple of innovative local authorities in Nelson and Canterbury are working with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to allow people to pay for retrofits through their rates and I would encourage more councils and electricity companies to look at this option.

We are achieving significant savings. In the year to June 2008, just over three petajoules were saved in the commercial, industrial and residential sectors, as a result of EECA’s programmes, including minimum energy performance standards to keep the least efficient products off the market, support for businesses to improve their energy efficiency, and incentives and information to promote energy saving. Three petajoules is equivalent to the amount of energy used in Hamilton, Nelson and Invercargill in a year, or about 44 percent of the Clyde dam’s annual generation.

I agree with Chris Henderson that saving energy is very important. That’s why one of the main policy planks of the New Zealand Energy Strategy is that, as a country, we should first invest in energy efficiency where this is cheaper than extra energy or energy capacity.

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