Last week Energy Minister Pete Hodgson announced the establishment of the Electricity Commission, including enabling medium power users to trade power, thus making load shifting, demand reduction or the use of stand-by generation more profitable.
Today Hodgson announced a $NZ2.9 million boost to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority for programs to save businesses money and, again, help improve electricity supply security.
The programs are expected to result in electricity savings totalling 350GWh a year by 2005-06, roughly equivalent to a year's worth of continual production from a 40MW power station, or the annual electricity consumption of this country's dairy industry, or 43,000 domestic households.
