Among of the many benefits of street trees, it stands out the capacity to reduce air temperature, either by shading caused by tree crowns, or by evapotranspiration. The increase of temperature in urban areas raises the demand for air cooling, affecting drastically the cost of electric energy. The objective of this study was to evaluate the application of questionnaires to study the relationship between the presence of street trees in the city of São Paulo, the electric power consumption and the presence and use of air conditioning appliances in the residences. It was chosen three areas in São Paulo which differed in the quantity of vegetation, selected by systematic sampling and 100 residences in each area, where the questionnaires were applied and electric power bills were analyzed. The use of questionnaire was not sufficient to establish a relationship between a relationship between the presence of roadside vegetation, electric power consumption in residences and the presence and use of refrigeration appliances. This is because there was no statistical difference among habits of air conditioning use as well as on the quantity of such appliances in the three areas. On the contraty, electric energy consumption differed among areas, that is, only with data collected from the questionnaires was not possible to isolate the effect of air conditioning appliances in the total value of electric energy consumption inasmuch as such consumption varied in the three areas, but quantity and and use did not differ.
Electric energy; Questionnaires; Street trees
