It’s a project and model that is winning on both the cost of living and climate change fronts. As winter descended on the country chilling many to the bone, there was also a ray of sunshine for some Christchurch households struggling with power bills.

Christchurch City Council recently approved funding of just under $50 000 for a trial of Ecobulb’s Kiwi Home Energy Saver KnowHow Initiative. Ecobulb contributed to the trial in kind to the tune of $34 500.

Managing Director and Founder of Ecobulb and the Kiwi Home Energy Saver KnowHow Initiative, Dr Chris Mardon has been in the energy efficiency industry for nearly 20 years and has a mission to save enough electricity to power New Zealand for a year.

The trial was for 200 energy efficiency assessments and was done over a short 4-week period finishing just a few weeks ago.

The results

Dr. Mardon says the project resulted in cutting the power bills of each of those 200 households by an estimated $865 per annum on average and that is not just a one off – it is year on year.

Overall that means total estimated annual power bill savings of $172 900 for those 200 homes.

Based on these results which are consistent with others done around the country, if the KnowHow Initiative was scaled up and you did for example, 30 000 assessments in Christchurch that would mean potential power bill savings of $18 million dollars per annum.

It would also have a big impact on the challenge of peak load demand which is largely driven by residential usage at certain times of time more so than business and industry.

There were 1,666 energy efficiency actions taken by those 200 households as a result of the KnowHow assessments.

‘From a climate change perspective, it resulted in an estimated carbon dioxide emission reduction of 480 tonnes over the next 10 years from just those 200 homes alone. The assessments also resulted in water savings of an estimated 5.3 million litres per annum again just from those 200 homes.’

Dr Mardon believes that all of this has been a fantastic outcome in a short space of time for people, their pockets and the planet.

‘We often hear of cost of living increases beyond the control of a household. We often hear of Councils having to make tough choices including rates increases. These savings could also been seen as a way of offsetting those.’

‘The water savings make a big difference in areas where Councils have introduced water use charging regimes. It is a way of proactively helping households reduce water usage before charging is introduced as well. It is a small investment per household for big savings and potential offsets of pending increases or new charges.’

KnowHow – the game changer in energy efficiency assessment

KnowHow is also what Ecobulb calls it’s fully automated home energy saver assessment software platform because it gives households the ‘know and the how’ to cut their power bills and at the same time, play their part in protecting the planet.

Ecobulb and Dr Mardon funded the development of KnowHow to supercharge the project delivery of the Kiwi Home Energy Saver KnowHow Initiative into communities throughout the country.

KnowHow was a finalist in the Innovation category of the recent NZ Energy Excellence Awards. It’s the only of its kind in New Zealand. It is simple to use but with a highly sophisticated back-end.

‘Because KnowHow is tablet based and automated as opposed to being paper based and manual, it means assessors can work with a household either in the home or they can do it remotely or at a community hui as part of the project.’

‘It also means that the whole assessment can take less than an hour and households see that as a little time for a big saving.’

The KnowHow assessment is done step by step, line by line, looking at the main ways the home uses energy from heating to second beer fridges in the garages through to how much water is used in their shower. All of that information is put into KnowHow by the assessor and an energy saving plan is produced.

KnowHow emails those plans to the household so they can stick it on the fridge or refer to it on their laptop or phone. Many put it on their main fridge at the same time as they are cutting the cord to the second largely old and barely used but expensive to run fridge in the garage.[1]

Consumer NZ’s PowerSwitch technology is now fully integrated and live within KnowHow and identifies the cheapest electricity contract and retailer for the household in the market and not just the cheapest contract with their existing retailer.

Households though get to make the call if they want to switch or stay with a particular retailer - many do on the spot, some wait until they get their next bill and others might stay with their current retailer for reasons other than price such as what they do in the community.

The integration of PowerSwitch into KnowHow also saves the many hours of ringing around multiple retailers to try and find a cheaper plan – that’s all done within KnowHow and it ranks the electricity plans of different retailers from cheapest to most expensive. For just a few minutes of work, many households can save hundreds of dollars per year simply by switching electricity retailers and power plans.

The ultimate decision to stay or switch does though and must sit with the household – it also means they tend to get going with the energy saving actions and installing the energy saving devices straight away.

Assessors

Assessors come from within the community and one of the keys to getting lots of assessments done quickly is that the assessors have a sole purpose – to work with the household to build a plan and put much of it in place then and there.

The assessment process is then not another thing being added onto someone’s job and at risk of going down the priority list or being left out because of capacity restraints. The KnowHow assessors will often do the in-home assessment outside traditional working hours or at the weekends as well because that is what suits the households.

Dr Mardon says the assessors have tended to be single parents who need flexibility. They’re good smart people who know and love their community, know how tough it is to make ends meet and know how tough it is sometimes to trust in the help that that is being offered.

‘That mana that come with helping people save big on their power bills has also seen many of our assessors take big steps forward in their own personal growth and development and their own stories are in themselves powerful, humbling and inspiring. Creating those opportunities are ‘people wins’ out of every project.’

This approach of using local assessors and an independent delivery model means that once funding is secure, there is minimal drain on resources of the project partner like Council or a lines company unless they want to have specific on the ground involvement. The key is not creating an internal burden that might mean a partner or funder just can’t provide that resource right now.

Energy saving devices and the environment

The big environmental win of the estimated 480 tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over 10 years from those 200 homes alone came from switching out old inefficient lightbulbs and installing nearly 3,000 new Ecobulb LEDs at no cost to the homeowner and done as part of these assessments.

In addition, 172 energy efficient showerheads were given out reducing water usage and also the amount of heating required for showers. Saving 5.3 million litres of water per year from those 200 homes alone is really significant especially in a city of Christchurch where water has been an issue and topic of much debate.

Providing the energy saving devices as part of the project also means you in effect guarantee savings. Switching out the old bulbs to the Ecobulb LEDs, putting in the efficient shower heads and also assessors cleaning out heat pump filters as part of the assessment locks in savings right from that very moment in time. And again, at scale, that would have an immediate impact on peak load demand.

It’s all about whanau

Ta Mark Solomon, Kaumatua to the Home Energy Saving KnowHow Initiative says these projects are no brainers because of the immediate wins for people, their pockets, and the planet.

‘For me, this is all about whanau. Working with families to cut those dreaded power bills and relieve some of the pressure particularly given the current cost of living crisis. It’s also not just a one off saving that is gone by the time the next bill arrives. It is ongoing month on month year on year.’

Ta Mark Solomon says that for many Kiwi households, buying energy saving devices is just beyond their budget. They are the very households that really need help to reduce their cost of living but the reality is that many of those costs are beyond their control or influence.

‘Whilst much of the success story is in the numbers, the most heart-warming of all is the stories from whanau who tell us what the savings will mean to them and how they will use those savings. For one family, they knew they would follow through on everything because the savings would mean they could re-enrol their tamariki in their sports and for another family, it simply meant that there might be meat on the table that week.’

‘I want to see the Kiwi Home Energy Saver KnowHow Initiative scaled up, funded and rolled out with Iwi, industry and community partners right throughout Aotearoa and especially to low income households. There are quite dramatic increases in households now stating they are suffering from energy hardship that may previously have been considered mid-socio-economic families.’

‘We’d see billions cut off power bills, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of reductions in carbon emissions and it would drive very different korero about the amount and type of new generation being considered. Invest in reducing the demand first and that cost is far less than building new generation.’

A thank you to Christchurch City Council

Dr Mardon and Ta Mark Solomon have high praise for Christchurch City Council for funding the trial and for the support shown throughout including helping build relationships with others working in this space in this community.

‘Working together and sharing insights, learnings and the big dream is core to our belief system. Everyone has some ‘know and some ‘how’ and that is what we are all about.’

Ecobulb with support from Christchurch City Council will be applying to the Government’s SEEC initiative in the next round but the total pool for New Zealand in that round is $1.7 million with a maximum of $200 000 allocated per project. The successful applicants won’t be known until later this year.

Ecobulb is also exploring partnerships with other organisations, community agencies and potential funders and possibly private sector sponsors to extend the trial, target some high need low income areas and deliver more assessments as soon as possible.

[1] There is a recent article in the Consumer NZ magazine and on its website about the cost of older second fridges with supporting evidence and data – www.consumer.org.nz

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