Since 2015, Texas has received $53.3 million from the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and $24.6 million from the State Energy Program (SEP), resulting in the following benefits:

* Findings from a National Evaluation of the State Energy Program and a National Evaluation of the Weatherization Assistance Program. 

States report outcomes of State Energy Program and Weatherization Assistance Program formula (annual) fund activities to DOE on a quarterly basis. The metrics above are outcomes of formula-funded activities since 2015.

The SCEP Project Map highlights the annual formula and competitive funding for WAP and SEP.

Texas' Emerging Clean Energy Technologies Program assists in developing commercially viable clean energy technologies at designated Clean Energy Incubators (CEIs). CEIs have played a vital role in helping clean energy startups adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. From facilitating the transition to remote operations to navigating local, state, and federal relief funds opportunities, CEIs provided mentoring support necessary for startups to continue operations.

Between July 2020–June 2021, incubated companies from the University of Texas at Austin Clean Energy Incubator and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Clean Energy Incubator raised more than $19.2 million. Their activities resulted in a total economic impact of more than $15.6 million to the State of Texas.

The Texas Saving Taxes and Resources (LoanSTAR) Program is administered by the Texas State Energy Conservation Office and funded in part by formula funds from the State Energy Program. This program issues loans targeted for public buildings, including state agencies, school districts, higher education, local governments, and hospitals. As of August 2021, LoanSTAR has funded approximately 328 loans totaling approximately $553 million. The LoanSTAR Program has achieved total cumulative program energy savings of over $725 million, which results in direct savings to Texas taxpayers.

The Industrial Energy Efficiency Program (TIEEP), established by the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO), supports manufacturers' efforts to decrease the energy and water intensity of their Texas operations. The TIEEP goal is to help Texas industries maintain their world-leading position through ever-improving energy intensity, reduced environmental impact, and enhanced social and economic development. TIEEP's goals are achieved through four components:

1. Program Advisory Council—The council consists of experienced personnel with energy management experience, drawn from representative industries across the state. The council meets two times per fiscal year where they provide ongoing assessments of the needs of the industry and guide the selection of topics to be addressed in the TIEEP's outreach events.
    
2. Outreach Energy-Efficiency and Water-Efficiency Events Directed to Support Texas Industries—The target audience for these events is process industry energy and water management engineers and consultants. The events have a minimum combined registration of 240 people each fiscal year.
    
3. Dissemination of Information—Three highlight bulletins are created each year. These bulletins contain program announcements with short articles and summaries on topics of relevance to energy and water management engineers and consultants to the process industries. The bulletins are disseminated by email to the target audience of at least 800 people. 
    
4. Stakeholder Meetings and Texas Industrial Energy Efficiency Network (TIEEN)—TIEEP also coordinates meetings of interested stakeholders and serves as an administrative home for TIEEN. TIEEN is a network of publicly supported industrial energy-efficiency organizations. The goal of the network is to enhance opportunities for effective collaboration by members through structured periodic communication.

SECO recently completed the fourth year of the project with the University of Texas—Austin to create, pilot, and distribute Watt Watchers of Texas energy education materials for K–12 students. The main goal of the current and upcoming year's contract is to leverage the interactive, digital format and partner with key organizations, and continue to distribute the content to more students, schools, families, and communities. The digital program enables easier access to teacher lessons and activities. Additionally, the digital platform can continuously and seamlessly be updated and will help save material costs for districts.

Designed to go deeper than just turning the lights off, students, teachers, and families now have the opportunity to learn about energy conservation and cost saving tips through modern, everyday categories, such as food, water, and transportation.

Watt Watchers teacher trainings and workshops, and in-school student education sessions reached 100-plus teachers last year.  With training partner KLRN San Antonio, Watt Watchers conducted a large teacher training with professional development (PD) certification and they also hosted a one-hour regional training for educators and high school student ambassadors, reaching over 25 individuals. These sessions offered one hour of PD credit for teachers that complete the training.

This contract enabled Watt Watchers to develop a working relationship with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to expand the Watt Watchers program to NWF's EcoSchools USA audit-based program across Texas through training and workshops. The effort targeted 10 school districts across Houston, Austin, and Round Rock during Years 4 and 5.

In collaboration with existing partner CPS Energy, KLRN, and the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas, Watt Watchers lessons and activities were delivered to over 2,000 K-12 girls in the San Antonio area through the Girl Scouts Energy Efficiency and Environmental Suitability Badge Program.

SECO continues to collaborate with the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) and South-central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER) to expand the City Efficiency Leadership Council and collaborate to provide targeted assistance and outreach to Texas cities, specifically related to city energy efficiency projects, energy code adoption, and compliance.  HARC/SPEER hosted three regional outreach workshops to Texas cities, specifically related to energy code adoption and PACE financing. HARC/SPEER also facilitated monthly webinars covering energy management best practices and other topics of interest to be cultivated from conversations with the CELC stakeholders.

HARC/SPEER continued to promote the local government toolkit, Actions Cities Can Take to Support Energy Efficiency in Texas, and "Best Practices" identified and documented by the City Efficiency Leadership Council through its continued communication and meetings with Texas cities. They also continued to inform cities and counties of their statutory obligation to report energy and water use and plan for reduced consumption, HARC/SPEER's goal was to complete reporting by 100 public entities in 2021.

SECO continued collaboration with the North Central Texas Council of Governments to develop and deploy a regionally focused energy management program. This strategy facilitated public-sector energy and water management benchmarking, education, activities, partnerships and resulting taxpayer dollar savings. This project also increased the accuracy of emissions reduction data used to quantify impacts on regional Air Quality data.

The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) and South-Central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER) continued their collaboration to provide targeted HVAC system performance training to HVAC technicians across Texas. Both the webinar and in-person trainings are available along with bilingual and web accessible resources. Training and materials are directed to HVAC licensed contractors and technicians. SPEER continues to collaborate with the Texas Air Conditioning Contractors Association (TACCA) and the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) to maximize training opportunities.

HARC also created a series of commercial and institutional clean energy decision tools developed over the last year. This work, along with previous work, culminated in the development of the Texas Clean Energy Hub. The Hub houses not only these decision tools, but a variety of resources including case studies, reports, and the Energy Crossroads Podcasts.

SECO provides no-cost energy-engineering services to local governments and public independent school districts. These technical services are based on the needs of the public entity requesting the service and include a broad spectrum of energy-engineering assistance activities. 

Since September 2018, SECO vendors have completed 188 preliminary energy assessments (PEA) and identified potential annual utility savings of $13.6 million. Identified projects have an overall simple payback of 10.3 years.

PACE Technical Standards

SECO funded the update of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing PACE Technical Standards.  As part of this process, HARC also developed and facilitated a "PACE for Development" webinar to provide private institutional, commercial, industrial, and multi-family developers with in-depth information on how to leverage PACE as part of the capital stack in a post-COVID-19 real estate market. HARC also identified and is working closely with several communities to create PACE districts.

Learn more about SEP Implementation Models.

•  SCEP News and Success Stories.

More than 900 organizations are involved in the Better Buildings Initiative working to reduce energy and water waste and modernize the nation's buildings and industrial facilities. Download the 2022 Better Buildings Progress Report for more information on the Initiative as a whole.

The cities of El Paso, Fort Worth, and Houston, as well as Fort Worth Independent School District and Pasadena Independent School District have taken on the Better Buildings Challenge, a commitment to reduce the energy use of their entire building portfolios by 20% within 10 years, and are making progress toward their energy reduction goals. As of 2021, public-sector Challenge partners have cumulatively saved 133 trillion Btus of energy, $1.27 billion, and 1.5 billion gallons of water since the Challenge was launched in 2011.

The city of Dallas has joined the Better Climate Challenge, a commitment to reduce their portfolio-wide scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by at least 50% within 10 years. Dallas will pursue an energy efficiency target as part of this commitment, recognizing efficiency as a key driver of decarbonization.

In the past five years, SCEP has engaged nearly 100 partners in Better Buildings Accelerators. These Accelerators are designed to demonstrate specific innovative policies and approaches, which will accelerate investment in energy efficiency upon successful demonstration. Each Accelerator is a targeted, short-term, partner-focused activity designed to address persistent barriers that stand in the way of greater efficiency.

To learn more about other Better Buildings partners and solutions in Texas and other states involved in the Better Buildings Initiative, check out the Better Buildings Partner map.

ESPC Accelerator Partners

El Paso, Fort Worth, and Houston helped catalyze public-sector energy efficiency investments of over $2.1 billion in Energy Savings Performance Contracting (ESPC) from 2014 to 2016 as one of 25 state and local agency partners in the ESPC Accelerator. See demonstrated best practices in the ESPC Toolkit.

Sustainable Wastewater of the Future (SWIFt) Initiative

The state of Texas and the city of Forth Worth committed to improving the energy efficiency of their participating water resource recovery facilities as part of the Sustainable Wastewater Infrastructure of the Future (SWIFt) Initiative Phase 1 from 2016 to 2019. SWIFt Phase 1 hosted 25 state, regional, and local agencies that engaged with more than 70 water resource recovery facilities in their jurisdictions and successfully reduced their total energy consumption by more than 7%, adopted best-practice energy management approaches now showcased in the Wastewater Energy Management Toolkit, and created plans to achieve 30% energy savings.

Additionally, the state of Texas and the city of Austin Water have gone on to join SWIFt Phase 2. SWIFt Phase 2 is engaging wastewater treatment facilities in a voluntarily partnership to achieve 5% short-term and 25% long-term facility-wide energy savings and implement at least one next-generation technology (e.g., renewable energy, resource recovery, and advanced data management).

• State and Local Solution Center, a one-stop shop of impactful public-sector resources
• Weatherization Assistance Program
• State Energy Program
• NASEO State Energy Office Contact
• Contact State Weatherization Agency
• Texas Implementation Model: Industrial Energy Efficiency and Combined Heat and Power
• EIA Texas State Profile and Energy Estimates
• El Paso Better Buildings Challenge Partner Profile
• Fort Worth Better Buildings Challenge Partner Profile
• Houston Better Buildings Challenge Partner Profile