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WASHINGTON, DC, US, November 23, 2005 (Refocus
Weekly)
Real estate agents in the United States want the
federal government to make it easier for solar PV systems to be
integrated into buildings.
Homes and offices consume two-thirds of electricity in the U.S.
and one-third of total energy, although that is a “substantial
improvement” over recent decades, says the Real Estate Roundtable in
a letter to President George Bush. Residential energy per household
has declined 37% since the mid-1970s, while commercial energy use
per square foot declined 25% during the same period.
Long-term strategies for improving U.S. energy independence should
build on the real estate industry's historic successes in addressing
supply and demand challenges, and leverage public-private
partnerships that encourage energy efficiency and conservation,
explains RER chair Robert Lowe. He urged the government to continue
to expand the types of buildings covered by the “highly productive
and fully voluntary” ENERGY STAR program, which currently does not
cover shopping centres or apartment buildings.
Bush should call on federal agencies and private-sector businesses
to give priority to certified ‘green buildings’ in their decisions
about leased space, and the letter asks government to make it easier
for real estate firms to integrate co-generation and other on-site
energy generation technologies into their buildings. Currently,
local power utilities impose “burdensome inter-connection conditions
that could be streamlined with guidance from the federal government”
and facilitate the use of solar PV systems and fuel cells, it
explains.
The Roundtable pledged to help implement a ‘green building’ tax
provision enacted as part of this year's energy bill, which offers a
tax deduction for energy efficient construction and renovation equal
to US$1.80 per square foot. “Those precedent-setting tax code
amendments sent a clear message that continued, indeed expedited,
energy efficiency in buildings is a national priority,” says Lowe.
“Faced as we are with rising fuel prices and finite resources, our
country must stay engaged in the urgent business of mapping out a
more plentiful, reliable, sustainable and independent energy
future,” the letter explains. “In the short term, we fully support
your initiatives for an increase in energy production and
conservation.”
“We are now at another threshold moment in our nation’s energy
history, a moment that calls for a new generation of high
performance buildings, and buildings fuelled by a wide range of
energy types including on-site distributed generation,” it adds. The
Roundtable wants Bush to ensure that his energy and environmental
policy officials work closely with leaders of the real estate
industry, which have has been asked by numerous state and municipal
authorities to advise on long-term energy solutions.
“More can and should be done to streamline the process whereby real
estate companies integrate their own co-generation and other on-site
energy plants into buildings,” and realtors are starting to build
“redundant and highly efficient infrastructure into new and existing
buildings,” it adds. Short-term price spikes in natural gas and the
“natural wariness of utilities to allow prompt interconnection of
these systems to the local grid” means that “progress in this
critical area is slower than it should be.”
The Roundtable represents the major private real estate firms in the
U.S. with a collective portfolios of five billion square feet of
property valued at $700 billion.
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