Householders, businesses and the public service will be encouraged to save energy to help make New Zealand as energy efficient as its OECD partners, a pair of updated government strategies released yesterday reveal.
The Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy sticks to the last Labour government's 2007 target of having 90% of the country's electricity generated from renewable sources by 2025, but acknowledges non-renewable energy would be used to guarantee security of supply.
The Draft Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy proposes what Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee called an "ambitious but achievable" target to save 55 petajoules (PJ) of energy by 2015, to lift the country's energy efficiency savings closer to the OECD average.
In 2008, Nelson consumed slightly more than 1PJ (278GWh) a year.
The draft expects householders to save four times that, for business to save 21PJ, and for the transport sector to save 29PJ.
The public sector will reduce its per-head energy consumption by 10% on 2008 levels.
Releasing the drafts for public comment, Mr Brownlee said savings of that order would accelerate New Zealand's rate of energy intensity improvement from a rate of 1% a year to 1.2%.
Better conservation and efficiency would enhance productivity, improve energy security, reduce energy bills, and improve the health and wellbeing of households, he said.
The drafts update the last government's strategies, which were adopted in 2008, to reflect the Government's policy programme and a raft of recent reforms.
These include the repeal of the thermal generation moratorium, the push to promote exploration and development of energy resources including petroleum, and the review of the electricity market.
The repeal of the Biofuel Sales Obligation and establishment of the Biodiesel Grants Scheme feed into the drafts' promotion of a more energy-efficient transport system fuelled by a greater diversity of fuels and renewable energy technologies, and enhanced business growth and competitiveness from energy productivity investment.
Policies such as the Heat Smart programme would promote warm, dry and energy-efficient homes with improved air quality, while businesses and consumers would be encouraged to use energy-efficient products.
The Government would also promote an efficient, renewable electricity system while promoting the further commercialisation of petroleum and mineral resources.
The strategies focused on energy security and affordability, and recognised the need for environmental responsibility and reducing energy-related greenhouse gas emissions as per the Emissions Trading Scheme, Mr Brownlee said.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman and Labour Party associate energy spokesman Chris Hipkins acknowledged the strategies retained the aspirational goal of the last government, but said they were both very thin on concrete actions.
Dr Norman said there were no action plans: they were devalued, "high-level waffle".
Mr Brownlee said the draft strategies were not action plans and that the old strategies, with their accent on near-term goals, were quickly out of date.
