Federal agencies partner for home energy savings

New Web site promotes Energy Star appliances, offers cost-cutting tips
Inman News
The Bush administration today announced a new partnership aimed at reducing household energy costs by 10 percent over the next decade while improving our nation's air. The Partnership for Home Energy Efficiency will provide energy saving solutions for households across the country and support research and implementation of a new generation of energy-efficiency technologies.

The Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will provide Americans, including home builders, with the latest home energy savings information on a Web portal, Energy Savers Web site.

Americans spend more than $160 billion a year to heat, cool, light and live in their homes. By taking advantage of home energy efficiencies, an average American family could save $150 year, according to a press statement.

"For most owners and renters, utility bills are the second-largest household expense," HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said. "That's why housing affordability and energy efficiency go hand in hand. By reducing the price of utility bills, we reduce the cost of living for the nation's low- and moderate-income families."

In addition to the billions of dollars lost through energy inefficiencies, household power waste contributes to the power plant emissions that create soot, smog and acid rain.

"Last year, through ENERGY STAR, Americans chose to invest in cleaner air and healthier lives – saving enough energy to power 18 million homes and cutting $10 billion from their energy bills," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said. "We are delighted to work with our federal partners to help lower energy bills, reduce emissions from power plants and provide the next generation a healthier, cleaner environment."

Goals of the Bush administration's Partnership for Home Energy Efficiency include:

    • Expanding efforts to promote ENERGY STAR products;

    • Developing durable, comfortable, affordable homes that use 40-50 percent less
      energy;

    • Developing new energy-efficiency services to provide homeowners with greater
      savings, such as Home Performance with ENERGY STAR;

    • Delivering energy-efficiency savings to low-income and subsidized housing;

    • Continue to invest in innovative research in building science technologies,
      practices and policies; and

    • Providing design technologies and building practices to allow cost-effective
      net zero energy homes, by 2020.

In addition, individuals can take many simple steps today to help make their homes more energy efficient:

    • Replace incandescent bulbs with lights that have earned the ENERGY STAR.

    • Use a programmable thermostat with air conditioners to adjust the setting
      warmer at night, or when no one is home.

    • Use a fan with window air conditioners to spread cool air through a home.

    • Use an energy-efficient ENERGY STAR air conditioner, which can save up to 50
      percent on cooling bills.

    • Plant trees around your home. Just three trees, properly placed around a
      house, can save between $100 and $250 annually in cooling and heating costs.
      Daytime air temperatures can be three to six degrees cooler in tree-shaded
      neighborhoods.

    • Plant trees or shrubs to shade air conditioning units, but do not block the
      airflow.

    • Install white window shades, drapes or blinds to reflect heat away from the
      house. Sunny windows can make air conditioners work two to three times harder.

    • Replace windows with ENERGY STAR models and consider the new double-pane
      windows with spectrally selective coatings.

    • Tightly close fireplace damper.

HUD is a federal agency that implements housing policy.