Everything's bigger in Texas

Austin is often considered the Green Building capital of the world. Now a parade of Austin’s greenest buildings and energy efficiency sites are available at the click of a mouse including municipal buildings, district cooling projects, and mixed-use properties.

Austin’s Green Map at www.austinenergy.com/go/greenmap highlights more than 30 projects along with the key green features of each. The map is divided into five geographical areas to make it easy to find green sites in any area of town. More sites, including large solar installations, will be added to the map incrementally to provide the widest possible view of Green Building excellence.

The Pedernales Live and Work Community in East Austin, for example, was the first multi-family development in Austin to earn a 5-star rating from Austin Energy Green Building, the highest rating from the program. Each of the lofts had after-construction testing of duct systems to minimize any leakage of air conditioning and heating. The project also includes reflective metal roofing, Energy Star® rated appliances, programmable thermostats, compact fluorescent light bulbs and more. The energy-saving features reduce peak demand by 16.8 kilowatts, the equivalent energy use of five average-size homes in Austin during the hottest part of summer days.

Other green rated projects on the map include the 650,000 square-foot Braker Pointe office building in North Austin. The property is fitted with a white membrane roof that reflects 85 percent of the sun’s rays, helping to lower air conditioning needs inside. The building also maximizes the use of natural light and uses a high-efficiency lighting system with centralized dimming control. High-efficiency air conditioning and mechanical systems also help the building save 2.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually, the equivalent of what almost 200 homes in Austin use annually. The project reduces peak demand by 700 KW, almost three-fourths of a megawatt of generation, which avoids emitting more than 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Austin Energy Green Building has been rating projects since the early 1990s and assigns a 1 to 5 “Star” rating system with 5 being the highest. Buildings receive ratings based on the number of energy-efficiency and environmental features incorporated into the project. The program has rated more than 7,000 single-family homes, 60 commercial buildings comprising more than 3 million square feet of space and 57 multi-family projects containing 8,381 units.

 by Ed Clark, Public Information.