Super 12 loyalties to save on power

By JOSIE CLARKE and AUDREY YOUNG

Super 12 rivalries are likely to be enlisted in the battle to avert a power crisis by saving electricity during the next 10 weeks.

National electricity company M-Co, which is to monitor and report daily power savings, believes that competition between regions is the key to achieving the Government's savings target of 10 per cent.

From today, M-Co will report national and regional savings.

To encourage cuts through competition M-Co will propose that each region be defined according to its Super 12 franchise, provided the Rugby Union approves.

M-Co said the idea came from the Herald's use of a daily banner during the 1994 Auckland water crisis comparing water consumption across each of Auckland's cities.

A spokesman for the New Zealand Rugby Football Union said the union was happy to discuss the idea.

On Saturday, the day after the Government warned of the risk of blackouts, power use fell by 4 per cent across the country against the average of the past four Saturdays.

Although that is well short of the 10 per cent target, Energy Minister Pete Hodgson called it a "good start".

Mr Hodgson has asked M-Co to adjust the Saturday figures for temperature.

"You don't know whether you've had a hot Saturday or a cold Saturday, and it does matter."

More detailed figures would be available in another day and then every day as a guide to how the savings were going.

Businesses and public bodies are already planning conservation measures.

The ASB Bank announced at the weekend that by using generators it was saving enough power each day to supply 1200 households.

The North Shore City Council is preparing a report on how it can save 15 per cent - matching the Government's target for the state sector - and the Manukau City Council is checking lighting costs in 10 of its biggest buildings.

Mr Hodgson said he was also aware of an energy company that had encouraged large customers to bring forward maintenance shut-downs, with savings of 175 megawatts for at least a week.

Mr Hodgson will seek cabinet approval today for a campaign of television commercials starting next week expected to cost between $2 million and $3 million.

He will also reconvene tomorrow morning the crisis meeting he held on Friday with power industry players.

Power companies will report then whether they can run "buy-back" programmes like Mercury's, which gives individual customers rebates if they save power.

Mr Hodgson said companies needed a high level of monthly meter readings and a low level of customer switching to do this or there would be too many anomalies.

He hoped the companies that did not meet the criteria could still run programmes.

For example, if Dunedin saved 5 per cent overall, each customer would get the rebate whether they saved 4 or 6 per cent.

Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett warned that New Zealand could damage its overseas reputation needlessly if the coming weeks were spent arguing over whether the power market was working or not working.

"The core of the crisis is a shortage of rainfall, not politics or the power market, and we have to make sure this is the message that gets out, together with the fact that we are going to manage the crisis and manage it well."

National Party commerce spokesman Tony Ryall said the Government should switch off some of its own lights - Parliament had been "lit up like a Christmas tree" for the two nights since Mr Hodgson called on the country to save power.

Wholesale power prices have risen by 45 per cent since Sunday last week to close on Saturday at 33c a kilowatt hour, with continuing high demand combining with falling storage levels.

One kilowatt hour runs a one-bar heater for an hour or a 100-watt lightbulb for 10 hours.

MetService is not predicting significant rainfall in the South Island hydro lake catchment over the next fortnight.