Federal Funding Awarded for an Energy Efficiency Program in Houston
By Brooke, November 9, 2009, News
I was reading the paper (well, scanning it really) and saw that the City of Houston was recently awarded a little over $23 million in federal funding to support a program called the Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP). To me, that is a lot of money to be giving to a program that I knew nothing about. So I did some research and found out that this program provides simple energy efficiency improvements to low-income households to help reduce their energy usage with the intent to reduce their energy bills. They say that most of the communities in need of this program contain homes that are generally the oldest and in the most need of energy saving measures, and the homeowners often times are unable to afford the updates or are unable to do the improvements themselves.
The Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP) was created a few years back when the City of Houston saw a need to reduce home electricity usage because they found that 1/3 of the city’s energy consumption was from the residential sector. So they created the REEP and in 2006, they partnered with CenterPoint Energy to launch the first Pilot Program, where they provided weatherization installation assistance to an entire community in Houston. I wasn’t sure what they meant by by weatherization installations and in case you don’t either they are easy home improvements such as caulking windows, attic insulation and weather stripping which stop the cold and heat from entering homes, which reduces energy usage, electricity bills and CO2 emissions.
Since this program was started, 7,000 homes have been weatherized around Houston and energy bills in those homes have been reduced by 12-18% on average. And like I said earlier on October 30, 2009, the City of Houston was awarded $23,447,474 in federal funding to expand this program which will allow for more homes around Houston to receive assistance. They plan to start working on homes at the end of November 2009.
For more information on the Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP) go to http://www.houstontx.gov/reep/index.html.
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[...] wave, we thought it would be a good time to remind everyone about the city of Houston program, the Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP). In short, the REEP provides income-qualified Houstonians with weatherization measures in their [...]