A Green Home begins with ENERGY STAR Blue

• Did you know that a typical home can cause twice the greenhouse gas emissions of the typical car?  In fact, 16 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are generated from the energy used in houses nationwide.
  
  Energy used in our homes often comes from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, which contributes to smog, acid rain, and global warming. Simply put, the less energy we use in our homes, the less air pollution we generate.
  
  
• Each ENERGY STAR qualified home can keep 4,500 lbs of greenhouse gases out of our air each year.  And because homes; have such long life-spans, this environmental benefit lasts for many, many years.
  
  
• Since 2001 CenterPoint Energy has provided incentives for 50,344 ENERGY STAR Homes in the Houston area.  This equates to an impressive environmental impact as demonstrated by these comparisons.

  Equivalent to removing over 20,624 cars from our roads each year; or,

  Equivalent to planting over 32,521 acres of trees each year.

In summary by contributing to the qualification of these 50,344 ENERGY STAR Homes, CenterPoint has contributed to the removal from Houston’s air of more than,

• 108,154 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2); and,
• 463 metric tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2); and,
• 208 metric tones of nitrogen oxide (NOx) – each year!

CenterPoint Energy estimates that up to 30,000 homes were actually qualified as ENERGY STAR throughout the Houston metropolitan area in 2006, or about 40% of all new residential homes.

In fact, the EPA estimates that in 2006 alone, a total of 60,829 ENERGY STAR qualified, site-built, single family homes were built throughout Texas, which was over 37% of all new site-built, single family homes permitted.

In 2006 alone, over 172,000 new ENERGY STAR qualified site-built, single-family homes were built nationwide, which was more than 12% of all new site-built, single-family homes permitted.

To date, over 715,000 ENERGY STAR qualified new homes have been built nationwide, translating to estimated annual savings of:

1.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity
102 million therms of natural gas
$170 million in utility bills
1.6 million metric tons of CO2

For a national perspective on the ENERGY STAR New Homes Program, visit:  http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=qhmi.showHomesMarketIndex

Statistics are based on the EPA’s estimations for energy savings through 2006.  Statistics related to the CenterPoint Energy, ENERGY STAR Homes Program cover the period from 2001 – 2006.  Actual energy savings and environmental impacts may vary for individual homes.