Houston is the first C40 city in the U.S. to announce a comprehensive building retrofit project under the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Building Retrofit Program.
The C40 is an association of large cities around the world that have
pledged to accelerate their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The city has selected 271 buildings, containing
11 million square feet, in a variety of ages, sizes and
configurations–from high-rise offices to single story structures–that
are candidates for performance contracting.
Houston awared TAC, the building management and energy services business of Schneider Electric (SCH.L), a $9.6 million performance contract involving seven of the city’s 271 buildings. TAC will implement numerous energy conservation measures (ECMs) at these city facilities to improve the efficiency of the buildings, and the money saved in utility costs will pay for the upgrades.
Performance contracting offers many long-term benefits for
municipalities of all sizes, such as improved facility efficiency,
environmental protection and financial management. As a part of the
agreement with the city of Houston, TAC will guarantee the amount of
savings and agrees to pay the difference if that amount is not realized.
The CCI Building Retrofit program brings together many of the world’s largest cities, energy service firms and financial institutions in a landmark effort to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings.
“The city of Houston conducted a thorough search to find an ESCO that shared our objectives to find proactive solutions, use state-of-the-art equipment, and emphasize renewable energy sources and sustainability,” said Issa Dadoush, general services director for the city of Houston. “Buildings are responsible for more than 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in most cities, so retrofitting our facilities with more energy-efficient products and technologies is an important way we can reduce both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.”
For the first phase, the city of Houston selected TAC to perform energy audits on seven municipal buildings containing 1.2 million square feet. Because existing structures comprise a massive source of energy use within cities, improving their efficiency will have a major impact. The retrofits TAC completes in a typical performance contract can lower energy use from 20% to 30%, according to a CCI release.
The CCI signed its first retrofit project agreement in February 2008 for the renovation of a 700,000-square-feet mall in Mumbai, India.
Earlier this month, CCI and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched the Sustainable Urban Development Program.
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