The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) assisted more than 250 Tennessee Valley homes last year with energy efficiency improvements that collectively will save more than $110,00 each year on utility bills. As a result, TVA received a 2008 Energy Star Leadership in Housing Award from the Environmental Protection Agency, recognizing TVA's contributions to energy-efficient construction and environmental protection.
"TVA, in partnership with local power distributors, has a history of helping make homes more energy efficient through its energy right© program, and we intend to do even more going forward," said TVA Vice President of Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Joe Hoagland. "We are working to reduce the growth in power demand by the end of 2012 by 1,400 megawatts—about the amount of power needed to serve all the homes in a city the size of Nashville."
Under the energy right© program, TVA offers financial incentives to home owners and builders through local power distributors for energy efficiency improvements made to all-electric homes.
Energy Star, introduced by the EPA in 1992, is a voluntary market-based partnership program to reduce greenhousegas emissions through increased energy efficiency. According to the EPA, environmental benefits of the more than 250 TVA-sponsored Energy Star homes in 2007 are equivalent to eliminating the emissions from about 123 vehicles, saving 741,000 pounds of coal, planting about 203 acres of trees, or eliminating more than 1.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the environment per year.
