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Across New Zealand, homes, offices and even schools are looking for ways to conserve electricity. While everyone’s power usage is different, there are some easy ways to start reducing how much you use, and pay.

In this hub you will learn things like:

  • How to save power in different environments, including at home, work and school.
  • Affordable equipment available to conserve energy.
  • Easy behaviour changes for reducing energy consumption.
  • How much power different appliances use.
     

  • Save power at home

    Our homes need power to run. But there are many ways to reduce electricity usage around the house. The best part? It’s all easy to do! Read on to get some ideas that might just help save your household a few bucks.

  • Save power at work

    As any New Zealand business owner knows, running an office is not a cheap operation. Equipment, lights, computers, kitchen space… when you add it all up, power usage at work can get up there!

  • Save power at school

    In today’s modern world of computers and tablets, schools have more to consider with their power use than just heating and lights. Read on for some easy classroom energy saving ideas for teachers and students to think about.

  • How much power do appliances use?

    Kitchen, laundry, living room… power is being used everywhere in the house. Power hungry appliances are almost unavoidable. And that’s not even thinking about all the gadgets many homes now have charging constantly.

  • Power saving equipment

    Changing our habits is one part to saving power. But there are also energy-efficient products available that will help manage power usage. We’ve pulled together a list of some of these for you to consider in your quest for reducing electricity use.

  • How to manage lights

    Power savings are often as simple as the flick of a switch. But there’s more to reducing electricity from lights than just turning them off. Read our guide on how to manage lighting and its power use.

  • Building a home for energy efficiency

    Are you in the process of building your dream home, or getting stuck into some serious home-renos? This is a great opportunity to include energy efficiency right into the design of your home, helping you save power in the long term.

  • Save power on cold days

    When it's cold at home, some of the more power conscious among us may be reaching for another layer to put on the first thing, but most of us think is ‘where is the heater and why isn’t it on right now?’ In the depths of winter, the home needs to stay comfortable so everyone can live happily and healthily. But how can you save money on these cold days, when it can feel like your power costs are skyrocketing?

 

Why is saving electricity important?

Our lives largely rely upon electricity to work, study, relax, eat, heat, cool…you get the picture. So it’s unlikely something most of us can do without. There’s no getting around it, though - power usage without some careful consideration can creep up and start to really dent our pockets. But there’s a number of reasons why you should think about your power usage and ways to practically reduce this.

Free up budget for other things

If you’re running up unnecessarily high power bills each month, you’re taking your budget away from other parts of life that would undoubtedly benefit more. If you are like the majority of people in New Zealand and need to stick to a sensible budget, then poor power usage habits shouldn’t even be an option. Think about some of the recurring expenses we encounter:

  • Groceries
  • Mortgage
  • Rent
  • Insurance
  • Transport
  • Phone
  • Internet

We haven’t even touched on repayments or savings. Households aren’t cheap to run these days; so why make it harder on ourselves?

By saving electricity usage through a combination of techniques we’ll cover in this guide, you’ll start to see extra money show up that takes the pressure off other more  important life expenses. 

The environment

It’s not just a matter of saving you money personally. A reduced demand for generation, even though we are a country that’s over 80% renewable energy-powered, makes a big impact. Remember every component of generation, transmission and retailer operation requires infrastructure, transport, logistics, people...and power! If everyone in New Zealand adopted good power usage habits, we’d see a reduction in grid demand throughout the year. 

The good news is that New Zealand (thanks to efforts from generators like our friends Meridian), is showing an excellent example on the world stage when it comes to prioritising renewable generation that’s less harmful to our natural world. 

New Zealand’s use of power

According to statistics released by MBIE, our usage of power is divided up into households (about ⅓ of the total demand), industrial (another ⅓), commercial (about ¼ ) and the remainder from transport, agriculture, fishing and forestry. 

With 33% of usage coming from residential users, there’s plenty of reasons for us to all adopt some positive electricity saving habits into our daily lives. 

We look to hydroelectric, geothermal and wind sources of power, which makes up the majority of our generation. While there’s still combustion sources that exist like coal, gas and oil, there is a government objective to achieve 90% renewable by 2025!

Downloadable Resources

Appliances and their power usage chart

Power in the home infographic

Before you go to bed checklist

Power saving equipment shopping list

What's Watt

Go to articles

Other help online

Saving electricity is often just part of a broader household or workplace initiative to reduce costs. If you’re looking for general cost cutting advice, we’d suggest checking out these great websites: