KEY POINTS:
The last thing Labour needs just months before an election is a serious power shortage that impacts on the way voters live their lives.
So far this year's tight situation hasn't really intruded on the average person's daily routine and yesterday's somewhat muted call for savings seems very much designed to keep it that way.
People are being asked - for now at least - just to do simple things like switch off the heated towel rail that might have been on overnight, and turn off the light in the kitchen when nobody is in there.
That's not exactly difficult for people to do.
Indeed we could have been forgiven for thinking at yesterday's press conference with Energy Minister David Parker that the savings request was nothing unusual at all.
There wasn't even a target for people to aim for.
But the very fact that a saving message is going out is likely to raise questions in some voters' minds about the security of our power supply.
And if the tight situation deteriorates much further and bigger savings are requested, there is a risk voters will really start asking why the country still has these problems after almost nine years of a Labour-led Government.
Labour is well aware of the potential backlash it could feel if things turn pear-shaped - that's why it is trying so hard to get the message out that the shortage is due to a drought and that it's being very well managed.
Ever since hydro lakes fell alarmingly low in 2001, the Cabinet has had updated lake levels on its desk every time it meets.
Prime Minister Helen Clark says this year's shortage is the best managed one she has seen - and she was in charge of the country when two others struck in 2001 and 2003.
She also stresses the Cabinet is acting on the advice it is receiving from the Electricity Commission and Transpower, who say that nothing more needs to be done right now.
That clearly signals that if something goes wrong from here on, those two organisations are not going to be very popular in the Beehive.
It also puts some distance between the Cabinet and the action that is being taken, should things go wrong.
The other message Labour is trying to get out is that in order to have a gold-plated electricity system which never faces these issues, people would have to pay more every day in their power bills.
Building enough generation to ensure a shortage never happens would apparently mean some of it would sit idle for months, and that carries costs.
So instead of doing that, we are being asked to turn off things for the third time in seven years even though there isn't a crisis.
And behind the scenes major electricity users - in many ways the engine room of the economy - are cutting back production to also help save power.
And around the country dirty thermal generation is being run as hard as it can be to compensate for the lack of hydro, spewing out the very emissions we are trying to cut back on in the fight against climate change.
All of which emphasises the considerable political risk the Beehive faces from the power shortage this winter.
If things go wrong from here on, National's claims that the government waited too long and was in denial of a crisis will gain weight.
