Houston, Tx to retrofit 271 buildings

Houston, TX, Mayor Announces Green Retrofits for 271 City Buildings
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2008
CONTACT: Jedediah Greenfield, 832-393-0993,Jedediah.greenfield@cityofhouston.net

Mayor Bill White has announced that the City of Houston has embarked on a project expected to significantly improve the energy efficiency of 271 City buildings. Mayor White and the Houston City Council have signed a contract with Siemens and T.A.C. committing these 271 City facilities, totaling approximately 11 million square feet, to the Clinton Climate Initiative’s (CCI) Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program.

“Energy efficiency building retrofits provide cities with an opportunity to address the catastrophic effects of climate change in practical and significant ways, which is a key goal of the Clinton Climate Initiative” said President Clinton. “I am pleased to work with Mayor White and the City of Houston in this large-scale retrofit of the City’s municipal buildings. Houston is not only positioning itself as a leader in energy efficiency and urban CO2 reductions, but is helping to raise the benchmark for cities around the world, and is setting a practical example for other cities working with CCI.”

CCI’s Building Retrofit Program brings together many of the world’s largest energy service companies, financial institutions, and cities in a landmark effort to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings across the municipal, private, commercial, educational, and public housing sectors.

Houston is a member of the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, an association of large cities around the world that have pledged to accelerate their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; CCI serves as the exclusive implementing partner of the C40. The City of Houston’s building retrofit program is currently the largest-scale project among the participating cities, and Houston is the first North American city to sign contracts and begin work on its City facilities.

“We’re committed to making these changes and institutionalizing best sustainability practices in the way we manage our city” said Mayor White. “It will improve our quality of life, protect the environment, save us money, and it’s simply the right thing to do.”

The following types of City facilities will be included in this project:

• 100 fire stations totaling 926,000 square feet
• 81 police stations totaling 2.4 million square feet
• 34 health facilities totaling 1 million square feet
• 5 Convention and Entertainment facilities totaling 3.9 million square feet
• 40 libraries totaling 1 million square feet
• 1 Municipal Courts facility totaling 104,000 square feet
• 10 general office facilities (e.g. City Hall, City Hall Annex, 611 Walker, etc.) totaling 1.6 million square feet

Such retrofit components and applications may include: lighting, space heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, building envelopes, heat recovery, energy and water management systems, environmental system controls, motors, domestic water heating, fuel switching, air distribution systems, water distribution/metering or other energy/water related improvements; e.g., utility rate improvements and renewable energy, to name a few.

The City anticipates a greater than 20 percent reduction in annual utility and operating costs through the implementation of this energy efficiency and utility conservation retrofit program. This is a multi-year contract that is expected to result in millions of dollars in savings over several years and eliminate 68,000 tons of CO2 from our air annually.