Shade trees on the west and south sides of a house in California can reduce summertime electricity use and reduce carbon emissions, a study indicates.
The study conducted last year on 460 single-family homes in Sacramento, is the first large study using utility bill information to demonstrate that trees can reduce energy consumption, the U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Services said in a news release.
"Everyone knows that shade trees cool a house. No one is going to get a Nobel Prize for that conclusion," says study co-author Geoffrey Donovan. "But this study gets at the details: Where should a tree be placed to get the most benefits? And how exactly do shade trees impact our carbon footprint?"
Donovan, a research forester with the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, co-authored the report with economist David Butry of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. Their findings have been submitted to the journal Energy and Buildings.
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