National power savings 7.4 percent, hydro storage levels up

12.50pm

National electricity savings jumped more than a percentage point yesterday to 7.4 per cent, the Winter Power Taskforce said in its daily update today.

In more good news hydro storage levels climbed three percentage points, to 67 per cent of average for this time of year with good rainfall in the main catchment areas.

Taskforce co-ordinator Patrick Strange warned part of the reason for the jump in power savings was a spell of warm weather across much of the country, but acknowledged the figures demonstrated "steady progress" towards the target of 10 per cent.

Weekly regional figures out today show Wellington power users doing best with 7.2 per cent savings in the week to Sunday. They were followed by Christchurch and the top of the South Island with seven per cent.

The two top savings areas had also shown the biggest improvement from a week earlier, up by 2.2 percentage points.

Auckland and the north of the North Island did worst for overall savings, with a figure of 5 per cent.

But at least users in that area had improved their performance over the previous week by a percentage point.

Central North Island users were just half a percentage point better, taking their savings to 5.2 per cent.

Dunedin and the south of the South Island achieved 6.3 per cent savings, an improvement of 1.4 percentage points.

- NZPA