TFS Delivers ADF Energy-Saving Trees Program

Credit: Texas A&M Forest Service

Last year ten thousand trees were distributed in Texas as part of the Arbor Day Foundation Energy-Saving Trees program. This is a turnkey program which offers a map-based website that homeowners can use to calculate the energy savings value that trees planted on their property can offer and allows electric utilities and other entities to provide free trees to customers.

Through Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS) engagement, Oncor Electric Delivery has been the primary sponsor of the program in Texas, distributing over forty-five thousand trees since 2012.  CenterPoint Energy and Pedernales Electric Cooperative have also participated in the program.  The Arbor Day Foundation sources all of the trees locally and many were grown in the TFS West Texas Nursery.

“Energy-Saving Trees is a win-win for Texans and TFS alike,” said Partnership Coordinator Gretchen Riley.  “By providing free trees to customers to plant in energy-saving locations, electric utilities help reduce energy loads while residents get beautiful trees that provide a host of other benefits besides shade and the associated reduction in cooling costs.”

In 2018, TFS was awarded a Landscape-Scale Restoration grant from the USFS to move this beyond just utility companies and engage municipalities in the program.  TFS is using Urban Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data to recommend species and identify subsets of participating cities where additional community canopy could be most beneficial.

For example, through Urban FIA data we know that Chinese tallow is the only shade tree in many lower socioeconomic neighborhoods in Houston.  While Chinese tallow does provide shade and other benefits to residents, it is invasive and doesn’t have the same monetary or intrinsic value as native southern species such as the iconic live oak.

In Austin, forty-one percent of the people live where only eight percent of the trees are.  And the dominant tree species in the entire city is Ashe juniper, neither the best shade tree nor very drought tolerant (outside of its preferred habitat).

By combining Urban FIA data with the Energy-Saving Trees program, TFS helps cities strategize tree distribution while enhancing the community canopy.

 

Author(s)
Gretchen Riley