• Home
• Energy & Resources
• New Zealand Energy Strategy
• Development of the NZES
• Past Consultation
• Submissions Summary Report
• Introduction

• New Zealand Energy Strategy

• Development of the NZES

• Past Consultation

• Submissions Summary Report
• Submissions

In December 2006, the government released a draft New Zealand Energy Strategy (NZES) to 2050¹ for consultation with the public. The draft NZES sought public views on the government's proposed vision for New Zealand's energy future, the broad directions by which this vision could be achieved, and proposed actions the Government could take to support its vision.

The NZES was part of a suite of discussion documents looking at energy and climate change initiatives such as carbon pricing and measures to address land use sources of greenhouse gas emissions. They were:

• Measures to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in New Zealand Post 2012
• Transitional Measures for Electricity and Stationary Energy Supply
• Draft New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy (NZEECS)
• Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Action Plan

This report is a summary of the main points of those responding to the proposals set out in the NZES only. Separate summary reports are available on the other energy and climate change discussion papers.

Number and type of submissions

The Ministry of Economic Development received a total of 331 submissions on the NZES from the energy industry, major energy users, other commercial interests, community organisations, non-government organisations, local and central government, Maori, academia, research organisations and interested members of the public.

These submissions can be broken down into the following groups:

Many submitters provided integrated submissions on more then one of the energy and climate change documents. Where possible, submissions not received by MED but covering matters relevant to the NZES have been identified. Eighteen submissions were received indirectly from other agencies. They are not included in the above statistics.

Appendix 1 lists the names of individuals and organisations who provided comment.

One pro forma submission (submitted 1688 times) was received based on a template prepared by Greenpeace. It was sent to the Ministry for the Environment. It contains comments relevant to the NZES. Where relevant those comments are included in the summary.

Nature of submissions

The NZES invited the public to answer a series of questions or submit a statement in a form of their choice on the proposals set out in the NZES.

Many of the submissions from organisations were in the form of reports or papers. Many are substantive and detailed. Some organisations and individuals provided additional input in the form of papers, reports or articles. Often the submissions were not made in isolation but were part of a comprehensive set of comments directed across the range of energy and climate change discussion documents. Some organisations provided statements and responded specifically to the consultation questions.

A feature of the business and industry submissions was generally to direct their substantive comments to the sector in which they operate and have expertise. There was a natural division between those with interests in stationary as opposed to transport energy.

Individuals either completed the on-line questionnaire or provided a statement of their views.

Approach to reviewing submissions

This review of submissions is qualitative rather than quantitative. This is a result of the breadth of the discussion paper, the broad range of responses received and the small percentage answering questions directly.

Submissions on the NZES were read and analysed using the following process:

• submissions were divided between individuals and organisations
• organisations were divided into sector groupings: individual responses were divided into those answering the consultation questions and those providing a statement of their views
• the responses were reviewed by sector to extract high level issues and messages, new policy proposals, relevance of the submission to policy work streams, and commentary on the consultation process both to date and future expectations
• submissions were further analysed and core comments about the issues and actions set out in each chapter of the NZES identified
• the main points have been extracted to make up this summary report.

This report follows the structure of the draft NZES. It is written in 9 parts:

• Vision
• Our choices
• Resilient, low carbon transport
• Security of electricity supply
• Low emissions power and heat
• Using energy more efficiently
• Sustainable technologies and innovation
• Affordability and wellbeing
• Other matters

The report does not cover every issue raised by submitters. It focuses on key areas and themes submitters consider need attention as the Government moves towards finalising the strategy. Where appropriate common views across sectors are noted, and divergence of views across or within sectors.

Submissions will continue to be analysed by relevant officials involved in developing further policy advice to Government on the final form of the NZES, subprojects currently underway and future projects that are endorsed and prioritised in the final strategy.