Energy Management

Energy Efficiency

Energy, in particular electricity, is vital to modern telecommunications and our business operation. However, the consumption of energy (electricity and fossil fuels) comes with some environmental and social responsibilities.

Find out about our:

• Electricity Consumption
• Renewable energy
• Fleet management

Electricity Consumption

Electricity is the most significant resource we use. We are one of the top 15 electricity users in New Zealand and we actively seek to reduce our consumption. Approximately 85% of our consumption relates to running the network and fifteen per cent powers our offices through air conditioning, lighting, heating, air conditioning and appliances.

Energy Efficiency Programme
We have been running power savings programmes in corporate offices and on network operations since 2003. With over 4,000 sites to power, an effective energy efficiency programme helps reduce costs and our environmental footprint.

We now consume over 230 giga watt hours of electricity. Around 93% of this powers our network and around 7% powers our offices through lighting, heating, air conditioning and appliances.

Our energy demand continues to rise at over 4% year on year growth between 2005 and 2009 due to consumer demand for more and smarter telecommunications technology. Most of our electricity use is for network air conditioning to keep our equipment working at the correct operating temperatures.

This Year....
Whilst power consumption increased over the last year, the 4.4% increase this year was higher than previous years' increases. This result was primarily due to rolling out new technology like the XT Network and Fibre To The Node (faster broadband).

The power saving programmes we undertook were:

• In our Corporate Offices we

- Ensure lights and unused equipment are turned off
- Use power smart computer screens and equipment
- Improved the efficiency of office air conditioning management

• On our Network we

- Replaced old equipment like air conditioners, switchboards, UPS's and batteries
- Replaced rectifiers in exchanges with more energy efficient versions
- Undertook server virtualisation

Overall, through various initiatives this year we estimate our annualised power saving is 2.5 giga watt hours of power, which is equivalent to powering about 230 homes for a year. This represents a 67% improvement on last year.

The results we have achieved are shown on the graph below.

Note: The energy savings shown on the graph above are cumulative with the exception of 2009. We decided to 'bank' the previous five years savings and to start again. We did this because was considered that our reporting should not be relying on savings achieved over a period greater than five years.

Renewable Energy Use

In addition to electricity supply from the National Grid, we have about 200 solar-powered sites and a further 20 sites that use wind-generated power.

Travel and Fuel Consumption

Fleet Management
With around 550 vehicles in the Telecom fleet, this year's fuel consumption amounted to 1.1 million litres of fuel averaging 10.8 litres per 100 kilometres. This represents a continued annual reduction in fuel consumption as we move to strengthen policies to reduce travel across the organisation.

Vehicle fleet emissions are steadily reducing year-on-year by around 4.4% per annum as the size of the Telecom owned fleet reduces. The graph below shows the resulting steady reduction in fleet fuel consumption.¹

We will look at some alternative options for our fleet as part of possible outcomes of the Carbon Strategy.

Flight and Taxi Travel
We have introduced polices to manage travel related costs. Concepts like taxi share and video conferencing help us to manage our fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

Air travel has increased over the last three years due to business needs across New Zealand as shown by the graph below. Air travel emissions have grown correspondingly. However, in 2008/09 we have noticeably reduced our air travel distances. Telecom's use of its own video conference technology also helps keep flights and travel down to a minimum.

Air passenger miles are shown on the graph below.

The Carbon Strategy will look at ways to reduce our emissions from travel.

Cycling and Travel to Work
We encourage Telecom staff to participate in the Bike Wise Business Battle; an event encouraging people to cycle to work.

2009 saw 350 Telecom staff take up this battle, a 15% increase over last year - and there were no prizes or incentives. This shows growing enthusiasm among us to try something we normally don't. It also shows growing support for the idea that cycling is a good alternative to travel by car avoiding traffic jams, reducing carbon emissions and staying healthy and fit to improve productivity.

For this challenge, the only requirement was to cycle for at least 10 minutes or two kilometres a day. You could cycle anywhere and anytime, meaning not just cycling to work but also includes cycling to the corner dairy shop, to the kids play ground or simply to a friends place. Staff not only cycled to work, but they used the occasion to cycle for non-work related purposes as well. Some employees went to the extent of forming teams and challenging other teams to better their performance.

We will look at how we can encourage staff to cycle, walk or take public transport as part of the possible outcomes of the Carbon Strategy being developed.