Energy efficiency a $7.7 billion, 120,000-job opportunity for Australia, 8 Feb 2019
Improving the energy efficiency of Australian homes and businesses would slash $7.7 billion a year off energy bills and create the equivalent of 120,000 full time jobs, a new report has found. The Energy Efficiency Employment in Australia report, commissioned by Energy Efficiency Council (EEC) and Energy Savings Industry Association (ESIA), and written by Green Energy Markets, also found that better energy efficiency would cut household gas use by 640 million gigajoules over a decade - the equivalent of a huge gas field.
“Energy efficiency is a huge opportunity – we can cut households’ and businesses’ energy bills by $7.7 billion a year,” said Rob Murray-Leach, Head of Policy, Energy Efficiency Council.
“Improving energy efficiency will also create thousands of jobs across the economy, making Australia cleaner, fairer and more affordable.”
Rod Woolley, President, Energy Savings Industry Association, said: “Energy efficiency schemes at the state level have been effective in helping homes and businesses cut energy bills and driving investment and innovation in clean technology.
“These schemes must be scaled up and implemented nationwide to maximise their benefits for homes, business, and industry; failure to do so is leaving money on the table.”
The report noted that energy efficiency is already Australia’s largest ‘energy employer’, employing 25 per cent more people than coal mining. About 500,000 electricians, architects and engineers spend some of their time working on energy efficiency, which adds up to 59,000 full-time jobs in the sector.
“Energy efficiency is an obvious job creator compared to other energy-related sectors because Australia has millions of buildings and pieces of energy-consuming equipment,” said Tristan Edis, Director – Advisory, Green Energy Markets.
“As Australia searches for solutions to drive a just transition away from polluting, expensive and unreliable energy sources, accelerating energy efficiency improvements is a smart and economical way to get the job done.”
For interviews, contact
- Tristan Edis at 0409 286 872 or tristan.edis@greenmarkets.com.au
- Rod Woolley at 0481 147 148 or rod.woolley@esia.asn.au
- Rob Murray-Leach at 0414 065 556 or rob.murray-leach@eec.org.au
KEY FACTS AND FIGURES:
Improving energy efficiency of Australian homes and businesses will:
- Cut energy bills by $7.7 billion each year
- Create 120,000 job-years of employment; and
- Reduce households’ gas use by 940 million gigajoules over a decade.This is equivalent to finding a huge new gas field in Australia, and would provide almost a quarter of Australian manufacturers’ gas needs.
- Improving and expanding state energy efficiency schemes could deliver 43,000 FTE job-years of employment.
- Upgrading homes with features like water heating, weather sealing and LED lights could save households $2.5 billion each year and create 34,312 job-years of employment.
(Report - Executive Summary, 8p PDF)
(Report - Full, 60p PDF)
(Media release PDF)
