Source
https://www.eeca.govt.nz/assets/EECA-Resources/Research-papers-guides/RHDD-Methodology-August-2024.pdf — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Source
EECA (Krishnan, Anand; Nelson, Bill). Regional Heat Demand Database — Measuring the primary energy demand for heat to enable decarbonisation. Methodology document, August 2024. ISBN 978-1-99-115224-4. First published Sept 2021; republished Nov 2022 (South Island only) and July 2024 (whole country). 10 pages. CC BY 4.0.
Authoring partnership: EECA + Transpower + 14+ Electricity Distribution Businesses (Alpine, Network Tasman, Network Waitaki, Aurora, Westpower, Nelson Electricity, Buller, Mainpower, Wellington Electricity, Powerco, Electra, Scanpower, Unison, The Lines Company, Vector, Horizon, WEL). Primary data collection by DETA Consulting, Ahika Consulting, EMSOL.
Scope
Methodology companion to the RHDD open dataset (RD_008). Documents:
- The 500 kW heating-capacity threshold for site inclusion (industrial + commercial only — residential and small commercial out of scope)
- Primary data collection process (EDB-led interviews and surveys via DETA Consulting; estimation applied where participation not obtained)
- Reference year (2022) and publication-version lineage (Sept 2021 original → Nov 2022 SI update → July/Aug 2024 whole-country extension)
- Anonymisation rules (Stats NZ regional aggregation; sector aggregation; ≤2-site cell suppression)
- Fuel-as-proxy-for-heat methodology (fuel GWh reported, not delivered useful heat — most sites cannot reliably meter delivered heat)
- Sector grouping schema (17 categories with constituent ANZSIC-style site types)
Does NOT include data values — those are in the 145-row CSV ingested as RD_008.
Relevance to NI and thesis
NI (methodology grounding for D01 process-heat baseline):
- Confirms RHDD reference year = 2022, allowing RD_008 numbers to be quoted with an explicit “2022 reference year” caveat in NI Lower Moutere outputs
- Documents why NMT cells are heavily privacy-suppressed (≤2 site rule) — supports the analytical decision to treat NMT regional figures as order-of-magnitude rather than precise
- Establishes the fuel-as-proxy-for-heat convention — important when comparing RD_008 GWh to thermal-load calculations that use delivered useful heat (apply boiler efficiency to convert: 60-85% industrial steam, >95% electric, ~300% COP for industrial heat pumps)
Thesis (methodological defensibility):
- Documents the joint EECA+Transpower+EDB+DETA Consulting collaboration model — strong methodological provenance citation
- Establishes coverage estimates (85% SI coal, 90%+ NI gas) supporting “near-complete” framing of fossil process heat data
- Documents the rationale for Stats NZ regional boundaries (anonymity preservation) — supports thesis discussion of why community-scale energy data is hard to obtain in small networks (relevant to NMT pilot context)
Caveats
- Reference year inferred, not stated as a single explicit “data reference year = 2022” sentence. The 2022 anchor comes from §1.1 figure captions and the 5.5 Mt CO2e statement. High confidence but not a single methodology-document declaration. The Aug 2024 publication date and “Updated and republished” wording could be misread as data being current to 2024 — it is not; only the geographical coverage was extended in 2024.
- Fuel demand ≠ delivered heat. Reported GWh = fuel input, not useful heat.
- Estimations applied where participation not obtained — for sites that declined to participate, EECA modelled demand from other sources. The methodology does not state the % of GWh derived from estimation vs primary collection, so the precision of any single cell varies (RT_133 captures this gap).
- Privacy suppression ≤2 = aggregate values still given even when site count is suppressed — RD_008 demand/capacity values for “≤2” cells are real, just the count is hidden.
Research targets
Documents to retrieve
None — methodology document fully covered.
Research gaps
- RT_133 (low) — Estimation-vs-primary split per RHDD cell. Methodology states “estimations were made where participation was not obtained” but does not disclose what % of each region/sector cell’s GWh value derives from estimation vs primary survey. For high-stakes thesis claims (e.g. NMT Indoor Cropping 19.8 GWh), worth direct EECA enquiry to understand which cells are primary-survey-confirmed and which are modelled. Not required for NI baseline.
Resolved by this ingest
- RT_130 (RHDD reference year confirmation) — CLOSED. Reference year = 2022 per §1.1 introduction (Figures 1 & 2 explicitly labelled “in 2022”; 5.5 Mt CO2e statement dated 2022). The Aug 2024 publication date reflects geographic coverage extension (SI-only → whole country), not the underlying data year.
Connections
Links to
Sources (1): RD_008
Referenced by