Tighter squeeze expected over power savings

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

New Zealanders may be squeezed this week for more power savings to avoid winter cuts, after a sluggish response to an initial appeal for frugality.

Energy Minister Pete Hodgson describes national power savings of about 3 per cent in response to a call for 5 per cent as a start - but only a start.

As each week goes by with no rain in vital hydro-power storage areas, the chances of calls for increased savings will become more urgent, he told the Herald at the weekend.

A taskforce of electricity producers and users will decide this week whether to raise the savings target, but may also look at carrots to encourage more people to switch off unused lights and appliances.

Taskforce co-ordinator Patrick Strange will not discuss incentives which electricity retailers may decide to offer, but savings in the 2001 supply crisis were encouraged by credits on power bills and community grants.

These helped to produce savings of about 7 per cent then, against a target of 10 per cent, before enough rain fell on the hydro lakes to avoid power cuts.

The Government and the industry are trying to avoid a similar bind this year by calling for savings earlier, as hydro lake levels continue to drop and gas reserves dwindle.

Those achieved so far have not even been quite enough to cancel out a 4 per cent general rise in electricity demand from last year, although rain on areas with high irrigation needs may soon produce more encouraging statistics.

Dr Strange hinted at incentives last week, when he said that simply calling for more savings was unlikely to produce the desired result without putting support systems in place.

Mr Hodgson said it was difficult when the weather was still relatively warm for people to think their way through the need to make savings. But left until winter, it would be too late.

A mood of increasing urgency was fuelled last week by Finance Minister Michael Cullen when he warned a Grey Power meeting in Dunedin of social and economic disruption if a dry winter causes shortages.

Asked whether it was fair to pitch such a warning to an older audience, whose health could suffer from skimping on heating, Mr Hodgson said the Government was not asking people to take it out on themselves.

Standby power from keeping appliances switched on at the wall was estimated to account for 5 per cent of the average household's bill.

Dr Strange said if every Auckland household used just one less light, a saving of about 50 megawatts would equate to the output of a small hydro dam.