Auckland, Northland lagging in battle to save energy

Average national power savings crept up to 4.1 per cent yesterday, but officials are disappointed with a poor performance from Auckland and Northland.

Figures to Sunday show only a 1.9 per cent saving for the top of the country. In contrast, the central North Island and Dunedin and the lower South Island have managed 4.4 per cent.

Wellington, and Christchurch and the upper South Island managed 2.5 per cent, and the national figure for the period was 3.1 per cent.

Winter Power Taskforce co-ordinator Patrick Strange said the result from the country's largest population and business base was disappointing.

"But these figures were compiled before the current advertising campaign began and the savings effort was only just becoming a focus of national attention," he said.

"It's also fair to say that some businesses have been slower than householders to respond to the savings call. Auckland has a very large commercial centre and this may have affected the overall savings figure for that region.

"Over the past few days, I've been encouraged by the amount of work being done by some businesses to reduce consumption, and I look forward to the impact flowing through to our savings figures," Dr Strange said.

He expected to see an improvement in the next week or two after initiatives such as Mercury Energy's "beat your bill" campaign to reward its customers for saving power.

Mercury's programme, announced yesterday, will provide financial rewards for savings by its 270,000 Auckland area customers.

Yesterday's national saving figure is up one-tenth of 1 per cent from Monday, but still well short of the savings target of 10 per cent.

- NZPA