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Research – potentials and barriers
Electricity Efficiency in New Zealand: Review of the Commercial Sector Strategy (August 2009)
The Commission has recently completed a review of electricity efficiency in the commercial sector. In-depth interviews were conducted with around fifty key stakeholders in the commercial buildings sector to understand their views on the main barriers to electricity efficiency and what needs to happen to effectively address those barriers in this important sector.
The review builds on analysis completed as part of the Kema Electricity Efficiency Potentials Study – a New Zealand wide review to identify economic and achievable electricity efficiency potential across the residential, industrial and commercial sectors. Interviewees were specifically asked to comment on the data from the Kema study and to comment on how realistic the Kema findings were.
Interviewees were also asked to evaluate the effectiveness of current programmes managed by the Commission and others with a view as to how the current approach may be improved to better stimulate uptake of more efficient technologies and practices. .
The Commission is grateful to the large number of people who gave willingly of their time to participate in this review.
The review’s outcomes will be used as a guide to shape future work in this area by the Commission. It is also hoped that other key stakeholders in the area of commercial sector electricity efficiency will find this report a useful input to their respective work programmes and activities.
The full report is attached below.
For more information, please contact:
Terry Stewart
Programme Manager Commercial
Terry.stewart@electricitycommission.govt.nz
Electricity Efficiency Potential in the Commercial Sector
In order to better focus its electricity efficiency programmes, the Commission contracted KEMA Inc. (KEMA) to report on the technically feasible and cost-effective electricity efficiency potential in New Zealand. The final report was submitted to the Commission in October 2007.
The KEMA report assesses total technical and economic potential for electrical energy (GWh) and peak-demand (MW) savings for New Zealand.
- Technical potential represents the sum of all savings from all measures deemed applicable and technically feasible.
- Economic potential is based on efficiency measures that are cost-effective based on a cost-benefit test that compares the value of avoided energy production and power plant construction with the costs of energy-efficiency measures and programme activities to deliver them.
The KEMA report then analyses achievable potential, that is, the amount of savings that would occur in response to one or more specific programme interventions. Net savings associated with programme potential are savings that are projected beyond those that would occur naturally in the absence of any market intervention.
Research on barriers to uptake of commercial efficiency measures
The Commission also contracted Covec Ltd to identify the market failures resulting in lower than efficient uptake of electricity efficiency initiatives in the commercial sector, and recommend programmes to address the identified failures. A final report was provided to the Commission in September 2007.
At the heart of the analysis in the Covec report is a range of base technologies identified by KEMA. These are the existing electricity-consuming technologies installed in the commercial sector, such as lights, air conditioning and electronic equipment. Each base technology has a more efficient alternative, and the initial analysis compares each efficient technology with the base technology it seeks to replace, with a view to identifying the most cost-effective measures and interventions.
Nine commercial sector building types are distinguished in the analysis - offices, restaurants, retail, food stores (supermarkets etc.), schools (primary and secondary), tertiary educational institutions, hospitals, hotel / motels, and miscellaneous. This is so that differences in the use of base technologies, and differences in the scope for adopting new ones, can be accommodated. For instance, new refrigeration options will be far more important to food stores than to offices.
The Covec report identifies the 40 most promising measures across all building types. These were selected on the basis of cost-benefit ratios and net present values. The report then identifies the most material measures - those that apply to relatively high base loads and therefore have the greatest potential to deliver energy savings.
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