Fitzsimons Jeanette: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13267] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The year under review was the second full year of the operations of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority since it was set up on a statutory basis as a result of my Energy Efficiency and Conservation Bill which was passed in 2000. The year under review was also the first full year of the implementation of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. The Local Government and Environment Committee was pleased to learn that to the extent that one can tell with only 1 year’s data the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority is on track to meet its target for energy efficiency and renewable energy. 
The authority has been laying the groundwork across an extraordinarily wide range of activities for a more energy-efficient future in all energy-using sectors. There are a bewildering range of activities including minimum energy performance standards for appliances grants for energy audits in industry an electricity demand exchange to cope with dry winters ethanol blends with petrol bio-diesel travel demand plans home energy retrofits and a great deal more. The authority has a mere $8.5 million for this work and it is spread very thinly across a wide range of activities. Therefore progress in all those areas has been quite slow because the authority has tried to work across a range of areas. 
I want to talk about two areas where I believe the authority could go further faster and also where it needs more funding. Both concern domestic energy use which is one-third of our electricity consumption. I believe if we are going to change the culture of our society towards a more energy-efficient culture then we need to pay some attention to households even though they are many and small because households are where people’s attitudes can be changed and where people learn about the kind of society we need to build for the future. 
The first area concerns the use of direct solar energy to replace electricity and also to give us greater security of supply in dry winters as well as build some capacity. It would be like a whole lot of little power stations on people’s roofs all around the country. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority is working towards a target of installing 10000 solar water heaters each year but that is less than half the number of new houses being built every year. So the authority is not even proposing to keep up with the rate of expansion of the housing stock. At present it gives a grantfor about 1 year’s worth of interest to a householder who has to borrow to install a solar water heater. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: 2 years. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: The Minister says it is 2 years’ interest. Jolly good! But people who would like to put their savings into this technology rather than in the money market because the return is quite good cannot get any help. The grant of 2 years’ worth of interest is not really enough to encourage a lot of people to want to take it up. Yet I get letters all the time from people who would like to adopt this technology but find it too expensive. 
The one big obstacle standing in the way of widespread use of solar water-heating in New Zealand is the small-scale nature of the industry. There is a terrible lack of capacity— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: I had been saying that the lack of capacity in the solar water-heating industry and the installing industry was an obstacle preventing this technology from making any really significant contribution to New Zealand’s electricity security and sustainability. That lack of capacity will not be solved by giving out a few quite small grants to individual householders so they can buy a solar water heater. What we need is a bold programme of Government leadership whereby all Government buildings are audited then all buildings where solar water-heating would be cost-effective are put out to tender over 5 years for a programme to solarise all suitable Government buildings. 
Over that 5 years the industry would have a chance to gear up its manufacturing and its installation capacity. It would know it had an assured market. The price would come down through competitive tendering. At the end of that 5 years there would be a lot of operating experience capacity would be built in the industry and the price would be a lot lower for ordinary New Zealanders wanting to solarise their homes. That is what I think the Government ought to be doing in the Budget on Thursday. That is the way to go if we want to get solar water-heating off the ground. I will keep on saying that and I have been saying that for a few years now. 
I want to make a brief mention of household energy retrofits. In the year under review 1500 retrofits were done and there are 700000 to 800000 pre-1978 homes left to do. We need to speed this up.