Industry using less energy than first forecast

Statistics New Zealand has revised down by a fifth the amount of energy used in the industrial and trade sectors.

Publishing a revised energy use survey yesterday for the 2009 financial year, SNZ said the industrial and trade sectors used 287,000 terajoules of energy for the year, compared with the 358,000 terajoules initially reported when the report was published in October.

The revision came about after user interest in the data resulted in revised energy use statistics, SNZ said.

The new report puts the amount of energy used by manufacturing at 167,000tj for the 2009 financial year, and by transport, postal and warehousing businesses at 65,000tj.

SNZ spokesman Hamish Hill said it had been the first time SNZ surveyed the energy use of many of the industries and it was building experience of the intricacies involved.

An issue that arose in manufacturing was that businesses could need to clarify what their original energy source was versus what that was turned into for use in their processes.

Another factor was that in the transport industry it could be difficult to know how to attribute energy use.

- NZPA