24 October 2023
Home Energy Education Programme helps thousands
Northpower’s Home Energy Education programme has been running since January 2022 and recently hit the milestone 2,000 assessment mark.
The programme provides free personalised energy saving advice and devices to households in Whangārei and Kaipara through local, on-the-ground assessors, with the aim of saving those households money on their power bills. Run in partnership with Ecobulb Ltd, it uses a simple online tool to help calculate and then show potential savings to the households who receive an assessment.
Changing our communities
As of 17 September, the programme had completed 2,067 assessments, distributed over 22,300 LED light bulbs and 1,960 low flow shower heads, and saved those households an estimated $1.62 million per year.
Northpower’s Community Partnerships Lead Arriane Christie facilitates the programme and still gets a kick out of the realisation people get when they see how much they could save on their bills by making minor changes.
“The tablet-based tool is great for showing people the actual dollar amounts they could save by taking small actions like installing LED bulbs, more efficiently using their heat pump, or turning off their second fridge, as well as choosing a better value retailer,” Arriane says.
“I also love seeing the passion our assessors have for their work, with all of them saying they love getting out into their communities and helping their whanau, neighbours and friends.”
We’ve had help from the MBIE SEEC fund to run this programme and will be applying for the next round of funding in October to continue the programme and extend its reach.