March 8th, 2009 7:31 AM

The Washington area ranked fourth in its number of buildings deemed energy efficient in the Environmental Protection Agency’s first annual geographic analysis.

With 136 Energy Star-designated buildings spanning 42.3 million square feet, this region trailed only Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston. The West Coast cities far outpaced its followers, however, with 262 Energy Star buildings totaling 74 million square feet in Los Angeles and 194 buildings totaling 60 million square feet in San Francisco.

Still, the area managed to beat out major metropolises and green-minded areas such as Chicago (6th), Seattle (10th), Boston (11th), New York (12th) and Portland, Ore. (18th). Locally, that translated into cost savings of $42.2 million and enough energy savings to power 30,700 homes.

“There’s definitely a lot of activity going on in the D.C. market,” said Maura Beard, an Energy Star program spokeswoman.

In particular, she cited the District’s Downtown Business Improvement District adopting Energy Star goals in its greening efforts, local jurisdictions joining the national Cool Capital Challenge, Arlington County’s 2-year-old emissions reduction effort and a Loudoun County slate of schools converting to Energy Star status. In addition, she pointed to green building legislation enacted in both Montgomery County and D.C.

In all, she said, EPA added 3,200 Energy Star buildings nationally in 2008 to its original roster of 4,100 buildings — a 130 percent increase year over year. “That is an unprecedented annual increase,” Beard said. Previously, the largest rise in Energy Star buildings in a year had been 50 percent.

A joint program between the EPA and U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Star seal is awarded to buildings, homes and appliances that rate in the top 75th percentile of peers in lowering their energy consumption and carbon emissions.

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