‘Powersavers’ advertising draws to a close

Media release
22 July 2008

‘Powersavers’ advertising draws to a close

The industry-funded Powersavers advertising campaign will end this week after six weeks of TV, print and radio advertising encouraging consumers to conserve electricity through simple and convenient measures.

Southern hydro lake levels have continued to rise with controlled storage now at 59% of average (35% full) compared to 46% six weeks ago.

Winter Power Group Convenor and Transpower Chief Executive Patrick Strange said that a combination of prudent savings by the public, collaboration by the industry, and rainfall in the right places, has helped the outlook of the hydro situation.

“The Powersavers campaign has been very successful and that is completely due to the willingness of the New Zealand public to get behind the initiative and help change the situation that we had going into winter."

“The industry has also worked very well together to put the campaign in place and undertake a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ work to get more generation out of our existing plant and to send it south to save water."

“With a more positive outlook for the southern hydro lakes and a more encouraging rainfall outlook, the industry sees no need to extend the campaign advertising longer than its intended six weeks,” he said.

Savings across the country continue to be positive with national savings of 4.6%. In other results, the upper South Island lead the country’s saving efforts with 5.1% with the upper North Island following close behind with savings of 4.9%. Other savings included the lower South Island with 4.8%, the lower North Island with 4.4% and the central North Island with 3.8%.

“The last advertisement for the campaign will run on Sunday night. We expect a good level of savings to continue for at least several more weeks, as people have got in the habit of flicking off lights and unused equipment,” Patrick Strange said.

“Over the course of the campaign, New Zealanders have saved an average of 3.6%, saving tens of millions of dollars on their bills. We hope that the campaign has helped consumers to learn small, convenient ways to reduce their everyday electricity use and bills, and hopefully these efforts will continue into the future,” he said.

Over the past four weeks, electricity usage for each region has been compared on a week to week basis, to results from the corresponding week in 2007, and released every Tuesday and Friday. This update will be the final savings update released.

ENDS

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