EECA research

EECA's research and monitoring programme is designed to deliver practical information that will support best practice in energy efficiency and conservation and renewable energy.  Our analysis helps ensure investment in EECA's programmes deliver the best returns.

Some research projects are conducted in house while others are contracted out.  The research programme is overseen by a committee involving people from all parts of EECA.

The areas we cover include:

Energy use

We maintain and develop the national energy end use database.  New studies associated with this include the Building Energy End-use Survey being undertaken by BRANZ and the Primary Sector End-use Survey being undertaken by Statistics New Zealand.

Household energy affordability

Work underway in this area will establish a baseline for understanding household energy use and poverty in New Zealand.

Analsyis of potential

These studies get the hard facts on the potential for generation of renewable energy including smaller scale or distributed generation in specific regions of New Zealand. We are also planning further research into the areas with the highest potential savings from increasing energy efficiency.

New and developing technology 

We conduct a wide range of research to find out the facts about new products and technologies, such as identifying the most energy efficient form of water heating and assessing home ventilation systems.

Monitoring

We monitor and report on the impacts of EECA's programmes to measure the difference we are making to New Zealand's energy use.  We also monitor progress towards targets set out in the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy

Research resources

The Energy end use database. This database contains estimates of national energy use broken down into different categories including sector, technology, end use, region, and fuel type.

Find out about research conducted or funded by EECA in the Resource centre.