RD_008: EECA Regional Heat Demand Database (Aug 2024)

Source

https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/data-tools/regional-heat-demand-database/ — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)

Source

EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority), in collaboration with Transpower and Electricity Distribution Businesses. Regional Heat Demand Database — data file, August 2024 release. Surveyed by DETA Consulting. Covers NZ industrial and commercial sites with ≥500 kW heating capacity. 145 rows in CSV, 20 columns.

License: CC BY 4.0 (EECA standard for public datasets).

Scope and structure

  • Regions: 14 NZ regions (Stats NZ standard) — Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatū-Whanganui, Nelson/Marlborough/Tasman, Northland, Otago, Southland, Taranaki, Waikato, Wellington, West Coast
  • SectorGroups: 17 — Commercial, Dairy Product Manufacturing, Education, Food and Beverage Product Manufacturing (ex. Dairy, Meat), Government (Central/Local), Healthcare, Indoor Cropping, Meat Product Manufacturing, Metals, Mining, Non-Metallic Minerals, Oil & Gas, Other Manufacturing, Petrochemicals/Chemicals/Polymers/Rubber, Textiles, Waste Management, Wood Product Manufacturing
  • Fuels: 7 — Natural Gas, By-products, Coal, Diesel, LPG, Biomass, Geothermal
  • Coverage threshold: sites ≥500 kW heating capacity only (residential and small commercial excluded)
  • Privacy suppression: site counts ≤2 reported as “≤2” without precise value
  • Units: GWh (demand), MW (capacity); 1 GWh = 3.6 TJ

Relevance to NI and thesis

NI (regional process-heat baseline for Lower Moutere context):

  • NMT regional rows (key_claim 5+6) are the only sub-national cut in the EECA cluster; provides surrounding-industrial-context for the Tasman pilot
  • Indoor Cropping NMT 19.8 GWh / 6.83 MW (key_claim 7) is the pilot-adjacent biomass-conversion target candidate — sits within Interview I [INT_001]‘s 1-5 MW mature mini-DH envelope
  • Fuel-switching context (key_claim 8) frames the feasibility constraint: demand exists, feedstock supply is the binding parameter for NMT biomass

Thesis (macro process-heat decarbonisation chapter):

  • National totals + fuel mix (key_claims 2-3) anchor the thesis macro claim: NZ has ~67.7 PJ of fossil process heat at ≥500 kW sites requiring substitution
  • Top-3-sector concentration (73%) shows process-heat decarbonisation is structurally a sectoral-targeting problem (Wood / Dairy / Oil&Gas) not a distributed problem
  • Cross-validation with RD_007 (key_claim 9) gives the thesis two independent NZ-government datasets converging on similar industrial fossil-heat magnitude

Methodology companion ingested as OT_028 (2026-05-31). Key resolutions: (1) data reference year = 2022 (closes RT_130) — §1.1 figures explicitly labelled “in 2022” and the 5.5 Mt CO2e statement is dated 2022. Aug 2024 publication date = SI-only Nov 2022 → whole-country July 2024 geographic coverage extension, NOT a data-year revision. (2) Reported GWh = fuel input, NOT delivered useful heat — for thermal-load calculations apply boiler efficiency (typically 60-85% for industrial steam boilers; >95% for electric boilers; ~300% COP for industrial heat pumps). (3) Coverage estimates: 85% of South Island total coal use, >90% of North Island natural gas use — strong for dominant fossil fuels but not 100%. (4) Privacy-suppression rule (≤2 sites per Region×Sector cell) explains why 7 of 10 NMT cells are suppressed. (5) Stats NZ regional boundaries chosen specifically to preserve anonymity over EDB-network boundaries.

Research targets

Documents to retrieve

  • RT_130 (low) — RHDD reference-year confirmation. CSV does not state which fiscal year the data covers (FY23 vs FY24 vs survey-period average). Answered by the methodology companion OT_028.

Research gaps

  • RT_131 (low) — NMT facility identification. Privacy suppression (≤2 sites) blocks identifying the specific Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough facilities behind 7 of the 10 NMT cells (Dairy ≤2, Indoor Cropping ≤2, Healthcare ≤2, Government ≤2, Other Manuf ≤2, Mining ≤2, Commercial ≤2). Not required for NI baseline.

Connections

Links to

Sources (2): OT_028 · RD_007

Referenced by

Sources (9): CR_057 · CR_058 · OT_028 · OT_203 · OT_204 · RD_016 · RD_024 · REG_033 · URL_007

EDT domains (1): D01: Renewable Energy & Storage Systems