NSW Energy Efficiency Strategy
The NSW Government announced a new Energy Efficiency Strategy as part of its response to the 2007 Owen Inquiry into Electricity Supply.
The purpose of the strategy is to:
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Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption in NSW
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Reduce the impact of rising energy prices on businesses and the community by lowering energy consumption
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Delay the need to construct additional energy generation and distribution infrastructure in NSW, reducing costs within the state economy.
The NSW Energy Efficiency Strategy contains a range of measures to meet these goals. These are:
The Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) requires electricity retailers to save energy by improving energy efficiency in households and businesses. The energy savings target when the scheme started on 1 July 2009 was 0.4% of electricity sales in NSW and this will increase to 4% of sales by 2014.
Over the next decade this will help reduce future rises in household electricity bills by an average of $50 each year, support up to 1000 jobs and stimulate our growing energy efficiency industry with up to $1 billion of additional investment.
More information is available from the Energy Savings Scheme website or by e-mailing ess@ipart.nsw.gov.au
The $20-million Energy Efficiency Training Program is a four-year program to build energy efficiency skills in the NSW workforce.
The $63-million Home Power Savings Program is providing free home power assessments and power savings kits to 220,000 low-income families. It is estimated that this program will help participating households save up to 20% of their energy use every year.
The $15-million Energy Efficiency for Small Business Program is providing advice and rebates funding to help 6000 small- and medium-sized businesses cut energy use, saving the average small business $7850 on electricity bills over 10 years.
Energy Saver - energy efficiency for medium to large organisations
The Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) provides subsidised energy audits and facilitation to help NSW businesses identify and implement energy savings. An extra $20 million will allow OEH work with an additional 800 medium-to-large organisations on leading-edge waste, water and energy saving measures until June 2013. This will cut energy use in these businesses by at least 10%.
The $15-million Energy Efficiency Community Awareness Program provides practical advice on saving energy at home and work. Information on the Save Power campaign is available from www.savepower.nsw.gov.au
The NSW Government Sustainability Policy requires public sector agencies to reduce their energy consumption and includes a target to reduce energy use in government-owned or tenanted buildings to year 2000 levels by 2019-20.
Page last updated: 23 May 2011
