Savings forgotten as power use soars

By ANNE BESTON

Power consumption soared at the weekend as some big industrial users cranked up and households forgot the saving message.

The jump came as a $2 million advertising campaign to encourage power saving opened last night.

Figures from national electricity monitoring company M-co show savings reached just 1.8 per cent on Saturday, down from 10.3 per cent the day before and well short of the 10 per cent the Government has asked for. Consumption rose sharply during the Bledisloe Cup clash.

But the rolling seven-day average remained at 10 per cent despite the blip.

The Government's six-week-long "If you're not using it, switch it off" campaign immediately came under fire from the Opposition.

National's commerce spokesman, Tony Ryall, called Energy Minister Pete Hodgson's appearance in the ads "blatant self-promotion".

"When was the last time you saw a minister of the Crown in a Government-funded advertising campaign like that?"

No one seemed sure just why power consumption rocketed on Saturday, but some were blaming the transtasman rugby clash.

"We have spoken to some of the retail companies and nothing seems to indicate just why it happened," said M-co chief executive Chris Russell. "It was pretty cold and a lot of people were inside watching the rugby."

But the community relations manager for retailer Trustpower, Graeme Purches, said some of the big power users had reverted to normal usage after a week of taking steps to cut consumption.

Ralph Matthes, executive director of the Major Electricity Users' Group, said he had not seen enough details from M-co to know whether that was the case.

"I think there were some who were off during the middle of the week that are now back on," he said.

BHP New Zealand Steel Ltd's plant at Glenbrook in South Auckland had been using its co-generation system to produce more gas to produce its own electricity, but that came at a cost to the company, Mr Matthes said.

Kawerau's giant pulp and paper mill, Norske Skog Tasman Ltd, formerly Fletcher Challenge Paper/Tasman Pulp and Paper Co, had also reverted to normal production over the past couple of days after shutting down to do maintenance work inthe middle of last week.

Mr Matthes said big industry users were looking forward to the Government's campaign, hoping it would convince householders to save more power.

"Here in Wellington we've had a patchy response with the Wellington City Council not pitching in at all, but as we head into the middle of this week we should be able to see if we're doing too much or too little in terms of conservation."

Meanwhile, Auckland consumers may find themselves punished by the city's largest energy retailer for not saving enough power.

Mercury Energy will give its 235,000 Auckland customers just 48 hours' notice of a price rise instead of the previous one-month warning, and other retailers do not rule out following suit.

"It's just a precaution, all we are saying is that down the track we may need to change the way we control hot water or put in place some different incentives," said Mercury's general manager, John Foote.

"I don't think price is the first thing we would look at ... But you may in the future want to up the ante there and put a penalty for high-usage in."

Meridian Energy and Genesis Energy both ruled out price rises.

"We have given commitment to our customers not to alter prices until the end of winter and probably beyond," said Meridian spokesman Alan Seay.

Genesis Energy spokeswoman Donna Baker said the company had given customers a similar undertaking, but only over winter - "I guess we will be looking at prices at some stage, but not before October."

And some hospitals face massive rises in their power bills because their long-term electricity contracts have come up for renewal while wholesale prices are high.

Nineteen of the country's 21 district health boards are part of a group contract which comes up for renewal on October 1.

Attempts to tender it out have attracted no offers from power companies, and if that continues, hospitals may be at the mercy of volatile spot prices on the wholesale market.

One Christchurch rest-home saw its power bill rise sixfold in a month, from an average of $6500 until its contract expired in June, to $36,000 for July alone.

Meridian's Mr Seay said the situation was similar to that of householders who chose a fixed or floating mortgage. Once the fixed term ended, they had to take the floating rate, which could be a lot higher.

"There are a number of organisations in that situation, big commercial users and some of the country's councils."

Mr Seay said the deregulated market was still new, and companies hoped that once major power consumers got used to it, they would sign up for longer-term contracts.

The hydro lakes' storage level was at 59 per cent of the average for this time of year yesterday and the same as on August 4.

* The toll-free hotline for energy saving tips is 0508 SAVE IT (0508 728 348) for a free video.

Feature: Electricity

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority