Businesses taking part in the federal Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) were on track to save $786 million a year from implemented or intended investments to curb energy use, the report notes, citing Industry Ministry figures. A new report has found the benefits of electricity privatisation may be overstated. Credit:Bloomberg However, the 2014 axing of the EEO by the Abbott government – for an annual saving in regulatory burden worth just $17.7 million – and other moves to cull efficiency efforts mean future energy savings are likely to fizzle out. "The government has created a new colour of tape – blue tape, which ties the hands of regulators from making good rules to the benefit of business and the community," Dr Saddler said, adding that "ideology is trumping sensible economic policy". For instance, the federal policy requiring any new regulation to be offset by the abolition of other rules limited the ability to extend energy savings efforts, the report said.

More than 5000 homes and businesses across the ACT could soon have access to photovoltaic battery storage. Credit:Rohan Thomson Demand starts to rise The slide in Australia's electricity demand is now reversing, with the latest annual figures pointing to a 1.4 per cent increase in 2014-15, partly erasing the 2.1 per cent drop in the previous year. While it is too early to attribute the switch to policy rollbacks, a reduced interest in energy productivity will start to play a role, Dr Saddler said.

"It's not being pushed at the national level," he said, adding the same was true of states under conservative governments "with the honourable exception of NSW". The now-scrapped EEO scheme, for instance, forced senior managers at companies to give a greater priority to potential energy savings than they had previously, since its introduction during the Howard government in 2006. Similarly, minimum energy performance standards that prevented the sale of sub-standard appliances and equipment needed to be constantly tightened to ensure deeper savings in both energy use and resulting carbon emissions were achieved. "Savings from existing regulations will be exhausted within the lifetime of the products," Dr Saddler said, referring to fridges, air-conditioners and other appliances. "To keep going, you need to have all these new regulations...because technology keeps on moving on, other countries are moving on, and we're standing still," he said.

Enforcement first All states, meanwhile, were failing to secure achievable savings by their failure to enforce energy-efficiency requirements for new homes. As Fairfax Media reported in December, a separate Pitt & Sherry study for state and federal governments found "a virtual total absence of checking of anything" when it came to compliance with the star ratings, according to its author. Dr Saddler said poor construction and materials would lock in energy wastage for decades, and that higher star ratings were less a priority than enforcing those already in place. The drop in electricity use had been achieved without halting economic growth, with the average electricity needed for each million dollars of gross state product diving from 70 megawatt-hours in 2006 to 60 MWh in 2014, Dr Saddler's report found.

The loss of further savings would mean power use – and resulting emissions from the electricity sector – will increase along with population and energy use. Some of that rise is showing up in the latest emissions data, which saw carbon pollution jump by 6.4 million tonnes in the 12 months since the end of the carbon price, Pitt & Sherry reported on Monday. While part of the increase was prompted by rising demand, most of the emissions jump came from a surge in the share of coal-fired power, with the trend accelerating, the consultancy said. *An earlier version of this article cited lower savings ($67 per household, $1.4 billion in total) before the Power down II report was amended.