{"id":445,"date":"2010-04-06T09:30:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T09:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/texasenergyexchange\/?p=445"},"modified":"2026-03-14T16:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T20:19:35","slug":"texas-making-energy-efficiency-progress-despite-energy-star-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2010\/04\/06\/texas-making-energy-efficiency-progress-despite-energy-star-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas making energy efficiency progress, despite Energy Star ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 1.125rem; color: initial;\">Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released their 2009 annual report ranking the top 25 cities with the most <\/span><a style=\"font-size: 1.125rem;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.energystar.gov\/ia\/business\/downloads\/2009_Top_25_cities_chart.pdf\">Energy Star<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 1.125rem; color: initial;\"> buildings. Only three Texas cities made the list, but the rankings don\u2019t illustrate the energy efficiency strides some Texas cities have made, nor what opportunities still remain for improvement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What it means to be an Energy Star building<\/strong><br \/>\nEnergy Star buildings must score in the top <a href=\"http:\/\/www.energystar.gov\/index.cfm?c=business.bus_bldgs\">25 percent<\/a> of EPA\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.energystar.gov\/ia\/business\/healthcare\/natl_energy_rating_system.pdf\">National Energy Performance Rating System<\/a>. Nearly 4,000 commercial buildings earned an Energy Star rating in 2009, resulting in savings of nearly $1 billion in utility bills and more than 4.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Houston<\/strong><strong>, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin make the cut<\/strong><br \/>\nJust three Texas cities made the Energy star list this year. Houston ranked 6<sup>th<\/sup> (down from 3<sup>rd<\/sup>), Dallas-Fort Worth ranked 8<sup>th<\/sup> (down from 5<sup>th<\/sup>) and Austin ranged 18<sup>th<\/sup> (down from 13<sup>th<\/sup>). San Antonio ranked 16<sup>th<\/sup> last year, but didn\u2019t even make the cut this year.<\/p>\n<p>So how can eco-friendly Austin rank behind Detroit, Michigan and Lakeland, Florida? The bottom line is that Energy Star is a good program with tangible results, but it doesn\u2019t tell the whole story about energy efficiency in buildings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Many Texas cities are efficient, even without Energy Star rating<\/strong><br \/>\nOne reason Texas cities don\u2019t rank higher on the Energy Star list lies in the metric the EPA has chosen. The agency simply lists the number of Energy Star-labeled commercial buildings that a city has. While this is great marketing for the Energy Star brand, there are a lot of important things happening in Texas that this list overlooks.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Austin Energy\u2019s Green Building Program was one of the first green building programs in the country and was used as an early model for the national Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.<\/li>\n<li>Many cities have adopted more stringent building codes than what the state requires, which are almost ten years old. Cities like San Antonio and Waco have adopted newer codes developed in 2009, and Dallas and Houston have adopted equivalent codes. Addison, Austin, Arlington, Lewisville, McAllen, San Marcos and Sugar Land are also planning to adopt similar codes. League City is even making plans to adopt the codes that are being developed for 2012!<\/li>\n<li>Texas\u2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us\/\">State Energy Conservation Office<\/a> has initiated a rulemaking process to raise the minimum statewide code to those developed in 2009. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sos.state.tx.us\/texreg\/pdf\/backview\/0326\/0326prop.pdf#page=124\">Comments<\/a> on this proposed rule are due by April 26<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Efficiency of existing buildings is still greatest challenge<br \/>\n<\/strong>With all this great progress on new buildings in Texas and across the nation, we can\u2019t afford to ignore the fact that nearly half of all the energy in the U.S. is used by existing commercial, industrial and residential buildings. Texas\u2019 greatest challenge &#8211; and opportunity &#8211; lies in improving efficiency in this area, so stay tuned for future posts on this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released their 2009 annual report ranking the top 25 cities with the most Energy Star buildings. Only three Texas cities made the list, but the rankings don\u2019t illustrate the energy efficiency strides some Texas cities have made, nor what opportunities still remain for improvement. What it means &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7471,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[254,181],"tags":[],"coauthors":[114222],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-efficiency","category-texas"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Texas making energy efficiency progress, despite Energy Star ratings - Energy Exchange<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2010\/04\/06\/texas-making-energy-efficiency-progress-despite-energy-star-ratings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas making energy efficiency progress, despite Energy Star ratings - Energy Exchange\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released their 2009 annual report ranking the top 25 cities with the most Energy Star buildings. 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