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EPA New England and KeySpan Work to Improve Energy Efficiency

Release Date: 06/19/2007
Contact Information: EPA New England Public Affairs, (617) 918-1010

(Waltham, Mass. and Boston, Mass. – June 19, 2007) - KeySpan Energy Delivery is encouraging cities and towns in its service area to take the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “New England Community Energy Challenge” and reduce their energy use by at least 10 percent. The move is part of a concerted effort for both entities to encourage communities and individuals to increase their energy efficiency through their complementary campaigns.

KeySpan’s “Be Green, Win Green” campaign encourages individual homeowners to think through their fuel choices and consider the efficiencies and environmental benefits of heating their homes with natural gas. Similarly, the EPA’s Community Energy Challenge invites towns and cities across New England to implement simple and cost-effective measures to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy use while reducing air pollution and saving money.

“As we launched our campaign, we learned of the EPA’s Community Energy Challenge and knew that our program could be enhanced by working with the EPA in their efforts to conduct energy efficiency audits and help cities and towns establish benchmarks for improving their energy usage,” said Nick Stavropoulos, President of KeySpan Energy Delivery, the largest natural gas distributor in the Northeast. “The EPA’s Community Energy Challenge is a launching point for helping towns and individuals evaluate their energy needs and establish a plan for energy efficiency. KeySpan’s campaign will complement this by helping towns and individuals implement efficiency programs and projects to meet their energy efficiency goals.”

As a part of its campaign, KeySpan is working directly with communities and municipalities on multiple levels, including:
· Driving initiatives such as evaluating existing heating and cooling systems
· Working with communities to implement efficiency upgrades
· Providing communities with business development grants and other incentives
· Providing resources to both public and private developers to institute green building designs
· Providing financial incentives for upgrading to efficient natural gas technologies
· Funding to train facility managers on green building operations and management

“At the EPA, we are committed to working with communities to strengthen programs that improve energy efficiency and reduce air pollution. These two campaigns demonstrate the important and powerful impact individuals have on combating the long-term environmental issues that face us where we live, work and play everyday,” said Bob Varney, EPA New England’s regional administrator. “We are pleased that energy companies like KeySpan, which that have strong experience working with communities, are promoting energy efficiency and other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Of the eight million U.S. households that continue to use oil for home heating, six million of those homes are located here in the northeast,” added Nick Stavropoulos, President of KeySpan Energy Delivery. “Natural gas is a clean and reliable energy source that emits significantly less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel sources such as oil. Making the move to natural gas is a smart economic decision with enormous environmental benefits. Each homeowner who chooses natural gas heat over oil helps to reduce carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by nearly one third, and sulfur dioxide emissions, a primary cause of acid rain, by nearly 100 percent.”

EPA’s New England Community Energy Challenge invites communities to become an Energy Star Partner, to measure the energy performance of municipal buildings, schools and facilities and to set a goal of reducing their energy use by 10 percent or more and promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy. More information on how to sign up for EPA’s Community Energy Challenge is available online (epa.gov/region1/eco/energy/energy-challenge.html).

KeySpan’s campaign encourages homeowners to think about their fuel choices and consider making the switch from oil to natural gas and rewards communities that have made the highest number of switches. The campaign includes the “Be Green, Win Green” Sweepstakes with a grand prize of a full conversion from oil to natural gas and high efficiency gas appliances worth a total of $25,000, and four first-place $2,500 prizes of high efficiency natural gas appliances of the winners’ choosing. The sweepstakes will run through July 31, 2007. More information is available (http://www.keyspanenergy.com/begreenwingreen/) or call 1-800-GAS-2001.

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