Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:608;Page:5097] 
5.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy 
: Are any incentives being developed by the Government to encourage consumers to make the 10 percent electricity savings called for by Winter Power Task Force coordinator Dr Patrick Strange; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 Incentives for power savings in the form of buy-back programmes from electricity retailers will be part of the industry’s response to the prospect of power shortages this winter. Those programmes were successful in 2001 and will add to the existing financial incentive for saving electricity which is a lower power bill. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Will those incentives apply from yesterday—the date of the 10 percent savings target announcement—or should householders postpone any savings until they know how much the incentive is and when it will apply from? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Consumers certainly should not postpone making any savings because they will get a lower power bill as a result and will reduce the chances of problems in winter. I imagine that retailers will roll out their various programmes over the next week or two. They will include programmes that operate at the individual customer level and those that operate at the community level where the savings are gathered and returned into the community in some project or other as they were in 2001. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: How easy is it for domestic electricity customers to save 10 percent on their power bill? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority advises that domestic electricity consumers can save 10 percent on their power bill relatively easily by switching off appliances at the wall when they are not in use taking short showers instead of baths switching off unnecessary lighting and so on. Information on simple measures to save electricity will be made more widely available in a substantial advertising campaign beginning this weekend. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What progress has been made towards the provisions in the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy to encourage solar water heating—namely a market transformation programme with a target of 10000 new installations a year and a Government purchase programme to stimulate the solar water heater market—and would that not have made a difference if it had started last year? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Government hopes to make announcements in regard to those matters in the next week or two. They are useful: solar water heaters all those things help to contribute; when one starts to do the arithmetic one finds that they are not hugely useful but everything helps. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister agree with the proposal from Meridian Energy to supply its customers with draught-stoppers energy-saver light bulbs and hot water cylinder wraps and how many draught-stoppers energy-saver light bulbs and hot water cylinder wraps would it take to meet the 10 percent savings target and where do people sign up for the delivery of those goods? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: In order the answers to the questions are: that is Meridian’s business; quite a lot; and I do not know.