Grants help companies save energy and money

New Zealand businesses are applauding a Government-funded pilot programme designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the environment.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is giving out cash grants to help companies implement new technologies that will make their manufacturing processes more energy efficient.

Companies will be monitored for results once the technology is in place for a report that will be submitted to the Government, said Russell Bailie, programme manager for the Energy Intensive Businesses programme at EECA.

Six grant recipients have already been selected and they are expected to collectively reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 2300 tonnes a year.

The programme will help the Government to assess how New Zealand can best fulfil its Kyoto Protocol obligations, said Mr Bailie.

Tegel Foods, a grant recipient, is using the cash for a combined heat recovery system. Tegel's new system will use captured "white energy" produced by its refrigeration and compressed air system to heat up chilled water for the rest of its manufacturing process.

Trials are being conducted at the Tegel factory in Henderson, said Grant Wing, consulting engineer for Tegel Foods.

Mr Wing said Tegel would not have been able to implement a lot of its environmental projects had it not been for the help of ECCA over the last three or four years.

"Environmental projects are marginal when it comes to paybacks," he said.

Greenpeace campaign manager Cindy Baxter said the EECA programme was "amazing".

However, she said it was interesting that most businesses were still so "short-sighted" when it came to energy efficiency that they needed Government grants to get them started.

"Energy efficiency is a no-brainer even in financial terms because it saves them money anyway," she said.

Talbot Plastics, an injection-moulding company based in Christchurch, is using its cash grant to buy a new all-electric servo machine that will replace its old hydraulically-driven one.

Early trials showed energy savings of at least 50 per cent, said managing director Steve Wilson.

The company would not have been able to implement the technology on a "strictly commercial" payback, said Mr Wilson. Talbot Plastics had also just qualified for a platinum "Enviro-mark" standard.

EECA is looking to fund a range of different companies from several business sectors including food and beverage processing, basic metals, heavy transport and fishing fleets.

* Karen Tay is a journalism student at AUT University.