Energy Inefficiency in Housing: An Environmental and Socio-Economic Problem
Our nation's homes account for 21% of total energy use ' and 19% percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The burning of fossil fuels, such as heating oil, natural gas and coal fired electricity generation, contributes to smog, acid rain, and global warming.
Growing socio-economic problems: As energy prices have risen sharply in the last several years, thousands of additional households all across Pennsylvania have fallen behind in their payments to utilities. Last year for the first time, the majority of utility delinquencies and terminations occurred among customers who were not low income. These customers are not shielded from high energy prices, because they do not qualify for bill payment assistance subsidies or free weatherization services. At this writing there are more than 9,000 households in Philadelphia whose gas service remains shut off. Though we are less than 2 months into 2007, already 15 people have died in Philadelphiaresult of not having safe, adequate heat in their homes. These include infants who have died from hypothermia and children and adults who have perished in house fires.
Pennsylvania has never supported any residential conservation program outside of the low income sector. Thus, our housing stock, both existing and new, represents an enormous opportunity for energy savings. Reducing energy consumption by more than 25% in both new and existing homes can be done very cost effectively across the state.
New Homes Standards: The two leading national standards for energy efficiency and sustainability in new home construction are the EPA's Energy Star Homes and the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Homes standards. The Energy Coordinating Agency (EC A) has played a key role in bringing both of these national standards to Pennsylvania in ways that will insure their rapid expansion statewide.
According to the U.S. EPA, 500,000 homes have been built to Energy Star standards in the U.S. over the last several years, and 160,000 were built to the standard in 2005 alone. EPA believes that by the end of the decade more than 2 million homes will be built to Energy Star standards.
Background on ECA's New Construction Programs: Since its inception in 1984, the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia, (ECA) has provided energy conservation, education, and bill payment assistance to as many as 30,000 low-income households each year. ECA and the Grassroots Alliance for a Solar Pennsylvania (GRASP) worked closely with the City to develop a set of energy efficiency standards which pre-date the Energy Star Homes standard. In 1996, ECA took over responsibility for enforcing these standards for new and rehabbed affordable housing, under the sponsorship of the City of Philadelphia and its Redevelopment Authority. The program has been very successful in reducing energy consumption by 15% to 20%,2 and reducing related greenhouse gas emissions created by these homes by more than 7,000 tons of CO2.3
Last year, with financial support from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (FEDA), ECA worked closely with the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) to get a total of 60 new homes built to the Energy Star Homes standard. As the largest landlord and the largest developer of affordable housing in Philadelphia, PHA is a critical player. This project was ground breaking in a number of ways:
- First time that PHA has built to the Energy Star Homes standard
- First time that Keating, a large production builder ever built Energy Star Homes
- First time that manufactured housing has been built to Energy Star Homes by Deluxe Homes, the only manufacturer in Pennsylvania which is unionized.
PHA manages housing for 80,000 people throughout the City, and has financed the construction of thousands of housing units over the last decade. The energy efficiency of new affordable housing has become increasingly important to public housing authorities across the nation, as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has frozen Housing Authorities' utility subsidies, and cut their operating budgets by 22%.
Perhaps even more importantly, but less visibly, ECA has been advocating with the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) to raise its requirements to the Energy Star Homes standards for its tax credit financed affordable housing statewide. PHFA has financed 20,898 units of tax credit financed housing statewide. PHFA has adopted a new scoring system which essentially guarantees that all projects built with 9% tax credit financing will be built to the Energy Star standard. The City of Philadelphia has recently decided to also adopt the PHFA standard. PHFA's initiative has helped to build and strengthen a statewide network of Home Energy Rating System (HERS) raters that is essential to the deployment of the Energy Star Homes program across the state.
Program Performance
Through the City of Philadelphia's Energy Specifications Program, ECA has provided technical assistance and inspection services for about 2,175 new units of affordable housing from 2000 through 2006, under a contract with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (RDA). Inspection and enforcement of RDA's energy efficiency standards reduced residents' energy consumption by 15% to 20% when compared to consumption in housing units that merely comply with the housing code. The City standard saved low-income home owners and tenants 1,743,572 ccf of gas consumption, saving each resident about $525 last year alone.
Educating building professionals was another important component of the City's specifications program. In 2005, ECA developed and disseminated a comprehensive Energy Star Homes construction manual and provided training to architects, contractors, and other building professionals in a series of workshops.
Energy Star Homes Certification: In 2006, ECA provided technical assistance and inspection services for 64 units of PHA housing to achieve the U.S. EPA's Energy Star Homes certification. These units will achieve 20% to 30% savings in energy consumption for heating and cooling compared to performance mandated by the state building code. This will save tenants 22,590 ccf of gas and 4,500 kilowatt hours of electricity in its first full year of occupancy, saving residents more than $1,100 a year for each unit. This project has just been awarded EPA's "Excellence in Energy Efficiency in Affordable Housing".
With funding through the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, ECA is currently working with PHA to reach the new and slightly more rigorous Energy Star Homes standards for another 75 affordable housing units.
LEED for Homes: Also during 2006, ECA was selected by the U.S. Green Building Council as one of 12 organizations nationally to pilot the LEED for Homes Program. In the pilot phase, ECA is working with market rate and affordable housing developers in Pennsylvania, VirginiaMaryland to certify their homes to the LEED for Homes standard. LEED standards are already widely accepted by the nation's building professionals as an important standard of environmental excellence in commercial buildings. During the pilot phase, several adjustments have been made to the LEED for Homes standard in preparation for the national roll out in the spring of 2007. and
ECA is providing technical assistance and inspections for LEED for Homes certification for a total of 31 housing units, two of which are already certified. LEED for Homes requires Energy Star Homes as the minimum energy efficiency standard and also guarantees other environmental benefits through water conservation, use of non-polluting, durable, sustainable, and recycled materials, protection of indoor air quality and the building site, and other health and safety measures. ECA is working with Habitat for Humanity in Philadelphia and Interfaith Housing in Wilmington, Delaware to meet LEED for Homes and Energy Star standards in 19 affordable housing units. ECA is also working with five market rate developers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.
Innovations in housing built to LEED for Homes standards includes passive and active solar design and construction, geothermal heating and cooling systems, super insulation, and high levels of daylighting. The first two LEED homes in Pennsylvania employ all these features and approach net zero energy homes, that is they generate almost as much energy as they use.
Program Impact
ECA's Energy Star efficiency program has had a tremendously positive impact on the quality of life experienced in our region over the last seven years. It has:
- Reduced pollution associated with electric power generation and the burning of fossil fuels;
- Lowered household operating expenses which keeps more dollars circulating in the local economy;
- Helped build the infrastructure needed to support a market rate Energy Star Homes program across Pennsylvania;
- Strengthened the market for energy efficiency products and appliances, and;
- Created local jobs in Philadelphia and across the state.
Increasing energy efficiency in affordable housing is a win-win situation for all concerned: it saves energy, reduces pollution, reduces utility arrearages, terminations and upward pressure on rates, while at the same time creating local jobs and spurring local economic development. It also reduces the financial pressure on state and federal governments by reducing the on-going operating costs of publicly assisted housing.
Pollution Reduction: ECA's Energy Star new construction programs provide significant environmental benefits. Pennsylvania's homes account for 22% of total energy use and 19% of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Low income people tend to live in older housing that is smaller, but more energy inefficient on a square footage basis. In fact, low-income Pennsylvanians consume twice as many units of energy per square foot than the statewide average. As a result, low-income housing contributes substantially to the energy use and green house gas emissions stated above.
In the nearly 2,300 housing units in which energy efficiency was increased through the Philadelphia Energy Star Program, the following levels of pollution were avoided.
| Pollution Avoided |
| CO2 (tons) | voc (Ibs) | NOx (Ibs) | CO (Ibs) | SO2 (Ibs) | Particulates (Ibs) |
| 7,108 | 653 | 18,215 | 2,904 | 74 | 218 |
Consumer Savings: Rising energy costs create a significant financial burden for low income households and their landlords. Given that public subsidies will not keep pace with rising energy costs, the energy affordability gap will steadily increase for the foreseeable future, (see Attachment A) Last year, it required intense intervention and leadership by Governor Rendell to avert a home heating crisis in Pennsylvania. As prices continue to rise, this annual crisis will become more and more difficult to resolve. The only way to get ahead of the problem is by rapidly and systematically increasing residential energy efficiency, for both new and existing homes. By reducing energy consumption an average of 15% to 20% in new homes consumers can save an average of $525 each year. The latest Energy Star and LEED for Homes standards save consumers much more. We anticipate that as concern over climate change increases, the level of energy and consumer savings in these programs will grow.
Building Energy Star and Green Building Infrastructure: One of ECA's goals is to help build a HERs rater network that can service all 35,000 new homes built in the state each year. Given the relatively small amount of funding available in Pennsylvania to transform the residential market, ECA has found that anchoring the Energy Star Homes program in the affordable housing sector is an excellent approach. It develops the local infrastructure needed to support an on-going Energy Star Homes Program: a group of architects, builders and contractors who are trained and building to this standard, and quality HERS raters who can inspect and certify the homes. This infrastructure creates a critical mass from which it becomes more realistic to develop an on-going market rate program. This infrastructure is also essential to the development of green homes.
Strengthening Market for Energy Efficiency Products: The construction of new homes built to the Energy Star standard is accelerating the market development of Energy Star rated home products. For instance in New Jersey, nearly 6,000 homes were built and certified to Energy Star Homes standards in 2004, representing 16% of New Jersey's newly constructed homes that year. Going forward, prospects were even brighter as 18% of construction permits issued in the state were for Energy Star homes.
Job Creation: As the energy efficiency and solar industries begin to grow in Pennsylvania, it is critical that these jobs employ local residents. ECA's Energy Star Program directly employs two Energy Analysts, but indirectly, it has helped create HERS rater positions across the Commonwealth, and has increased the skill levels of dozens of construction workers, builders and developers, thus enabling these employees to become more competitive in today's changing workplace.
• "Partnerships for Home Energy Efficiency", by Energy Star Program, U.S. E.P.A.., page 16 ECA impact assessment of Philadelphia Energy Specifications Program using U.S. E.P.A. pollution coefficients.
