Green Houston

Energy Efficiency Savings

Performance Contracting at Wastewater Treatment Plants

• Approved December 16, 2009
• Active participation by Clinton Climate Initiative
• Contract(s) with ESCo(s) to obtain guaranteed energy savings at some or all of the City’s 39 wastewater treatment plants
  • Costs to be paid for with saving from reductions in energy usage
  • Lifetime of project: 15-20 years

Performance Contracting for COH Buildings

• 297 facilities
• Office buildings, libraries, multi-service centers, police stations, fire stations, health centers, recreation facilities
• Utilize two ESCOs-Siemens Building Industries and Schneider Electric
• 5.3 million square feet under assessment
• 4.5 million square feet receiving energy conservation measures

LED Traffic Lights and Streetlight Pilot Project

• 2000 intersections completed
• Average 90% cost savings
• Saves the City $10,000 per day or $3.6 million a year
• Average 65% energy savings
• Last longer (7 years vs. 1 year)
• Upgrading heads from 8 inch to 12 inch as part of the process
• Remaining 400 streetlights complete 2010
• Failure/damage of one light does not impact others
• Up to 50% more energy efficient Instant on/instant off performance unlike current High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights Long life—15-20 years vs. 4-5 years

LEED Certification and Building Retrofit Program:
Since 2004, the City has required all new buildings to be LEED Certified. We currently have 37 LEED buildings with plans to add more through 2020. To date, the City has invested $70 million in energy efficiency retrofits: 6 million square feet of retrofitted City facilities are expected to achieve guaranteed energy use reductions of 30%, saving over 22 million kWh of electricity every year. The City’s most recent retrofitting projects were in the Parks and Recreation Department and in the Library Department where we retrofitted 18 libraries.

LED Lighting Conversion Program:
In 2014, at the City’s request, CenterPoint began converting ~175,000 streetlights to LED technology. This project is intended to reduce the City’s streetlight energy usage by approximately 50 percent, while reducing the City’s greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent. Although the project was supposed to take several years, thanks to overwhelming support from residents asking for lighting to be installed in their neighborhoods and a push to light up the city in time for the Super Bowl, CenterPoint is ahead of schedule.

Houston Public Works also finished replacing the incandescent bulbs at all 2,450 signalized intersections with LEDs and the City is now realizing over $3.6 million a year in savings.

To report streetlight or traffic light outage, please call 311.

Find more Energy Efficiency Information