New Zealand should take energy efficiency more seriously, members of the Sustainable Business Network will hear tomorrow.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Morgan Williams is visiting Hamilton as part of a nationwide tour to prompt discussion about how to solve predicted electricity shortages.

He said New Zealand had a culture of complaining when electricity prices went up and it had one of the worst energy efficiency records among OECD countries.

"To say simply that you could do it all by better efficiency (is wrong), but if we were to make serious investment in the efficiency side of the equation then we could almost certainly delay some of the capital investment we need to make in both generation and distribution."

There was potential to develop a completely renewable electricity supply "without any fuel bill", based on hydro, wind, geothermal and wave energy, he said.

-- Esther Harward