He described a range of financial incentives for small to medium enterprises that could include accelerated depreciation for energy saving measures.
The Government has already indicated it will ratify the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Mr Hodgson said the Government saw the strategy as a key means of addressing New Zealand's obligations to lower emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Simon Carlaw, chief executive of business lobby group Business New Zealand, said he had some concerns about the new strategy.
"It's good business to use energy wisely and prudently, because it saves you money, but the strategy as outlined is very light on a rigorous economic assessment of the impacts on the New Zealand economy of what is proposed," he said.
While most of the strategy was voluntary, restrictions on the importation and sale of inefficient electric motors are likely.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority already offers partly funded electricity use surveys to larger users, paying up to $2500 a company site.
The authority said that 700 of New Zealand's largest organisations were already part of the Energy-Wise Companies Campaign that it runs.
The authority said that since 1994, campaign members had cut carbon dioxide emissions by 184,000 tonnes a year, and 150 companies reported savings of $11 million in energy costs.
Authority chief executive Heather Staley said it was hoped smaller businesses would soon start to look at energy efficiency once they were told about the big cost benefits.
Methods of saving electricity were often very simple, such as changing the time of day power-intensive activities occurred.
National Party energy spokeswoman Pansy Wong said business people were concerned about the impact of the Government's methods of living up to its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
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Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority
