Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy

For the building industry, the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy sets out a clear agenda to transform the energy performance of New Zealand’s buildings through the active participation of building professionals.

Programme design has been informed by the findings from BRANZ’s Home Energy End-use Programme (HEEP), which provided useful information on our housing stock and where many of its deficiencies lie. The Building Code amendments and interest-free loans for residential efficiency upgrades, along with the Home Grants scheme (as part of the ENERGYWISE™ programme), used this information in their development.

Improving house insulation

The residential sector consumes 63 PJ of energy, including 44 PJ of electricity (33% of national electricity consumption). Programmes are being put in place for up to 180,000 insulation, clean heat or solar hot water upgrades. This should make a significant difference to the performance of New Zealand’s existing housing stock and to families by improving their health and lowering energy bills. These moves will also help to limit increases in energy demand and take some pressure off the need for thermal electricity generation, particularly at peak times.

The Building Code changes give us a clear future direction. The new insulation requirements in the Building Code Clause H1 Energy efficiency are designed to realise a 30% energy saving for space heating.

Solar water heating

Work is also continuing on more efficient water heating. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is stepping up its solar water heating programme, including a $500 grants programme for homeowners and volume builders. Other elements of the programme include installer training, system accreditation and industry information. See www.energywise.govt.nz/solar for more information.

The Department of Building and Housing recently published a new Acceptable Solution for installing solar water heating in the Building Code Clause G12 Water supplies, G12/AS2.

Home Energy Ratings

The voluntary Home Energy Rating programme, launched in December 2007, will increase consumer awareness of home energy performance and is expected to further drive demand for improvements. Under the programme, accredited assessors rate a home on its design, construction and orientation, plus its space and water heating systems. The assessment process gives the homeowner a star rating along with tailored recommendations on the most cost-effective ways to improve the home’s energy efficiency and rating.

Future holds more improvements

Looking to the future, the energy performance of residential dwellings could be further improved by the better, and more widespread, use of passive solar design principles. Another prospect under consideration is greater attention to life-cycle energy use and emissions within a building.

There is also the prospect of developing low and zero energy homes – homes that require minimal energy to function and incorporate the means to provide it. For this the strategy also contains programmes to promote the uptake of small-scale generation systems.

Industrial and commercial energy use also covered

The strategy also covers industrial and commercial energy use. Energy use in industrial buildings is often dominated by processes but lighting and space conditioning also play a part. Commercial buildings consume around 46 PJ of energy annually, dominated by several hundred large multi-storey buildings. To date, commercial buildings have lacked a comprehensive equivalent of HEEP. This will now change with the commercial Building Energy End-use Study (see article on pages 44–45). One of the objectives is to identify the energy performance deficiencies within buildings so that programmes can be better targeted to overcome them.

The strategy also has a number of programmes targeting energy use within commercial buildings. Lighting changes are already in place, whereas the stringency of Code requirements for HVAC systems should be updated by the end of 2008.

Support for the voluntary Green Star commercial building rating scheme will continue as the development of a Building Energy Rating Scheme (BERS) is considered. Public sector departments are required to adopt a minimum 5-star rating for construction of all new Grade A office buildings and refurbishments.

Training and management is key

The success of these programmes depends upon having a skilled workforce covering many trades and professions aligned with the building industry. One of the key programmes in the strategy is to instigate more widespread training on energy efficiency through the tertiary education sector and other training providers for professionals such as architects, builders, plumbers and electricians.

A major investment is also being made in energy management. One of the strategy objectives is to increase the uptake of best practice in energy management by 30% by the end of 2012. Another is to double the size of the professional and expert energy management services sector, including accredited energy auditors, by the end of 2012. Moves to promote this will include financial assistance to stimulate growth, industry training, continuing education and the establishment of quality standards. EECA will also establish a one-stop-shop energy efficiency advice service to provide information and to refer people to demonstration sites, guidelines and to act as a referral service.

This push for enhanced capacity to deliver energy services across a number of professions is backed by moves to expand key programmes. In addition to the residential insulation, clean heat and solar water heating schemes, the strategy calls for expansion of energy audit support to the business sector and provision of capital grants and information under the Energy Intensive Businesses programme. One of the projected outcomes for the strategy is a near flat lining of stationary energy demand growth. Savings in the residential and commercial building sectors have a significant role to play in realising this.

For more

One petajoule (PJ) is about the amount of energy used by a city the size of Nelson each year.

The New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy can be downloaded from www.eeca.govt.nz/about/national-strategy/nzeecs-index.html or phone EECA on 0800 358 676.

Download the PDF

B104-42-Energy Efficiency.pdf

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