Grey Power Federation Press release February 23 2007

"Residential electricity prices have risen 5.5% per year in real terms since 2000", said Graham Stairmand, President of Gray Power Federation today. "Government's NZ Energy Strategy is based on a forecast of prices rising by only 1% per year. It is no wonder that it pays little attention to residential power prices."

Greenhouse gas emissions from household electricity use are rising more rapidly than from any other sector. Government's Energy Outlook would have us believe that residential greenhouse emissions in 2005 comprised 1.8% of NZ energy sector emissions, compared to 2.6% in 1990. But this ignored emissions from residential electricity use. When those are counted, residential emissions in 2005 comprised 9.1% of energy sector emissions, up from 7.1% in 1990.

"The residential sector is a major emitter of greenhouse gases, and measures must be taken to reduce them," Mr Stairmand said. "This supports the Prime Minister's call for household energy to be a major focus of government's drive towards a sustainable economy. It will require big changes to the energy strategy, which now virtually ignores the residential energy sector. The Strategy's only proposed action is to fiddle with the low-fixed-charges regime - which will cause endless fruitless debate because it will create winners and losers."

Mr Stairmand said: "a strong household energy efficiency programme could cut the relentless growth in power demand that is driving expansion of electricity supply, now likely to cost over $12 billion over the next decade."

He said:

" * All houses should be insulated to the extent reasonably economic.
* Consumers must be enabled to install the heating appliance of their choice, whether through subsidies, or loans possibly put onto their mortgage. Heat pumps, efficient wood burners appropriate to any clean air zoning, or natural gas (with a flue to protect indoor air quality) should all qualify, and there should be low fixed charges for gas.
* Rebates should be available to replace faulty household appliances, especially refrigerators.
* Low-cost, no-cost measures should be promoted including curtains, fixing dripping taps, refrigerator seals - guided by household energy audits.
* Electricity Trusts should be constitutionally required to allocate funds for investments in demand side management and fuel switching measures that will result in the more effective use electricity by commercial and residential electricity consumers."

"The measures above should cost no more than $3,000 on average for New Zealand's 1.5 million domestic customers, as many houses are already well insulated and/or have efficient heating appliances. Thus by spending say $4.5 billion, shared between electricity trusts, central government and those consumers who can afford their own upgrades, New Zealand could defer or avoid building many of the planned power stations and power lines, which are unsightly and are adding seriously to the country's greenhouse gas emissions.."

"As with all policy change," Mr Stairmand said, "there would be winners and losers. Householders would get warmer and healthier houses, and (if they so choose) lower power bills. Electricity retailer-generators would sell less electricity, so their profits would fall."

Mr Stairmand said, "The fiscal impact is obvious. The majority of government's "unexpected" surpluses come from its state-owned power companies. As electricity is an essential service, dividends are just taxation by another name. Consumers squeezed by high power bills use less than they should, so we have cold houses, more deaths, and more restricted work days. This is economically inefficient as well as socially unjust."

Mr Stairmand concluded: "government must give high priority to measures that ensure householders can invest in energy efficiency wherever that is cheaper than investing in new electricity supply capacity."

ENDS

See... Graphs: Residential energy trends, from MED’s Energy Outlook and Energy Data File

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