Santa Clara, Calif. – September 13, 2005 – Silicon Valley Power (SVP), the City of Santa Clara’s municipal electric utility, has awarded Owens Corning, the world’s largest producer of insulation products, $1 million in energy efficiency rebates over the past two years. Owens Corning received the rebates for designing and installing energy-saving modifications to the glass melting and production process at its Santa Clara insulation manufacturing facility. The changes save more than 10,500,000 kilowatt hours each year. When Owens Corning doesn’t use those kilowatt hours, they become available for use by other customers. This is an extremely efficient, inexpensive and environmentally sound way of creating an additional supply of electrical energy for SVP customers.

“The costs of the new, more energy-efficient equipment was significantly more than the value of the rebates. The reduced electrical demands of the facility will eventually pay for these improvements, while helping our community meet its growing energy needs,” says Pete Koska, Owens Corning’s Santa Clara Plant Leader. “These changes will also allow Owens Corning to continue to efficiently produce the insulation needed to reduce our customers’ energy needs.”

The rebates are part of Silicon Valley Power’s Customer Directed Rebate (CDR), which pays customers based on their actual reductions in energy use resulting from uniquely designed projects. All SVP customers fund Public Benefit Programs, which include the CDR, as part of their utility bill. SVP offers a variety of energy-saving programs to customers and has paid out an average of $2 million per year since its rebate program began in 1999. During that time, more than 165,360,000 kilowatt hours of electrical power have been saved by SVP customers–enough to power 2,000 homes for 10 years.