GREENER, GREATER BUILDINGS PLAN FOR NYC -- PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE NEW YORK CITY ENERGY CODE
On Earth Day of this year, New York City introduced what is probably the most ambitious energy code revision plan in the entire country. It will be a five part plan that will feature a retrofit of existing buildings over the size of 50,000 square feet. If the law is approved, it will take effect July 1, 2010.
As we stand at the present, New York State is one of 42 states that utilizes the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) as its energy code. One of the main weakness in this code is that New York State has amended the code to allow for a 50 percent exclusion rate. What this means is that buildings are exempted from compliance with the code if they renovate less than 50% of the building or its sub-systems. In New York City (and for the most part in many other locations) buildings are often renovated floor by floor by tenants or occupants. Thus, a large part of buildings never face any need to comply with the newer IECC code.
Under the proposed NYC law, this will change, as fortunately, New York State allows for local municipalities to enact laws that are more stringent than the basic state code. A good example of this is right where I happen to live. The Town of Clarkstown, a northern suburb of NYC has already done this, with the enact of a code requiring ALL new residential construction to meet current Energy Star regulations. NYC will now adapt the IECC Code WITHOUT the 50% exclusion rule, thereby making it more stringent.
Under the proposed law, ALL buildings that are renovated will be required to comply. This simple change is expected to save 1 to 1.5 percent of carbon emissions over the next 20 years, helping NYC reach its goal of a 30 percent reduction by the year 2030. This law is critical to NYC, as most construction in NYC consists of renovation of existing, but sturdy, but energy-wasting buildings. NYC expects that 85 percent of buildings in existence today will be present in the year 2030.
The law has five points to it. They are: Lighting upgrades, Benchmarking, Audits and Retrofits, Green Workforce Development Training, and Green Building Financing.
Lighting upgrades will apply to any large building's lighting system, and will require that they be upgraded to meet the IECC code at least once at the time of renovation, or by December 1, 2022. Prior to December 1, 2022, this law will apply to all buildings on the tax lot maps with over 50,000 square feet. the law will NOT apply to renovations costing less than $50,000, and will not require any room to be upgraded more than once. On or after December 1, 2022, ALL building, with the exception of multifamily residential MUST meet the new code. In NYC it is estimated that 20 percent of all energy used in buildings is from lighting.
Benchmarking, which is the measurement of actual energy and other utility use of a building will be the second requirement of the new proposed law. It will need to be done on an annual basis, and will be a simple process that only will require basic data about the building and its utility bills to be entered into a free, on line data base tool, provided by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Commercial buildings will be required to enter information about tenant consumption, but residential apartment buildings will not need to do so.
This data will ultimately be placed in a data base in the Department of Finance's Assessment Roll. By doing so, this information can be used to further determining the value of a property, as well as creating a greater transparency regarding a building's actual consumption and operating costs. During the first several years after the law's enactment, this data will not be posted, to allow for building owners to become familiar with the benchmarking process. 2009 data will be required to be entered into the benchmarking data base by July 1, 2010. By September 11, 2011 it is expected that the first benchmarking data for city buildings will become available, and one to two years later, we will then see it for commercial and multifamily residential buildings.
Audits and Retrofits will be the third part of the new law. This will once again apply to all buildings larger than 50,000 square feet in area. It will feature a random rotating schedule, that will repeat every 10 years. A building will be required to undertake an energy audit of its central units, and perform any needed remediation to bring it up to code. It is estimated that there are 22,000 buildings in NYC that will fall under this law, meaning that 2200 buildings will be audited each year. Two types of improvements will be needed here: retro-commissioning and retrofit measures. Retro-commissioning refers to tune-ups of existing equipment, while retrofit measures will involve replacement or upgrading of outdated equipment. A national standard (ASHRAE) will be used for this part of the law, and will allow for specific requirements regarding needed training and experience of those individuals responsible for the needed inspections.
The first 10% of the buildings will thus come due by end of 2013, and early adapters will be rewarded by grandfathering those that choose to comply early, especially if they have done extensive energy upgrades since 2006. In addition, this part of the law dovetails into the next section, green workforce development and training. It is estimated that over 45% of the energy consumption in NYC comes from building central systems. Thus, the carbon savings here could be as much as 3%by 2030.
This part of the law will become effective immediately upon its enacted, but no energy efficiency report will be required to be submitted before December 31, 2013.
The fourth part of this new energy legislation will involve Green Workforce Development and Training. As this law will impact well over 2.5 billion square feet of NYC real estate, it is expected to create at least 19,000 construction jobs over the next 13 years. These will include commissioning, auditing, lighting upgrading, and maintenance jobs.
NYC has created the Working Group for Green Building Workforce Development. This includes people from New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) as well as the City of New York. The group will deal with the identification of workforce needs, training needs and equally importantly, spell out requirements for certification of these workers. The city is also working with U. S. Green Building Council -- New York (now to be called the Urban Green Council) to further these efforts. It is expected that the strategy will be developed by late 2009.
Lastly, a fifth part of the law, Green Building Financing will be established to help building owners comply with the law. It is recognized that while energy efficiency improvements pay for themselves over time, upfront costs can be great. As part of the effort, the City will establish the Greener Greater Buildings Loan Fund, which will be provided at no cost to the taxpayers of NYC. The City plans to apply for $16 million of the $80 million that was awarded to NYC from the Federal Stimulus money.
The Fund will broken up into two categories of buildings over 50,000 square feet. The first will be for buildings who's owners are in financial distress, while the second will be for buildings that have taken the first steps, and are thus "shovel-ready" but need additional help to complete the job. These loans will be structured so that the payments will be less than than the cost savings, which allows for the building owner to see the economic savings. As these loans are paid back, the Fund will then be replenished for future building owners to draw from. It is expected that this loan system will serve as an additional alternative to the existing rent-based energy efficiency financing. It will also serve as a model for for private lenders, by demonstrating that energy efficiency improvement loans can be viable based on the financial savings reaped from the work done.
A meeting sponsored by the New York Chapter (Urban Green Council) was held last Thursday on this subject. In addition to the five parts mentioned above, the meeting panelists included a sixth part -- The Energy Code, which I explained at the outset of this entry.
The speakers included Mark Colgrave from NYSERDA, Paul Rode from Johnson Controls, Jeff Broadsky, a real estate management consultant, Ashuk Gupta, another energy efficiency consultant, as well as the heads of the New York Chapter of USGBC. The panel pointed out that buildings account for 70% of Green House Gases, of which 32 % come from residential, 24% from commercial, and 12% from industrial sources.
The panelists also agreed that this will be a benefit to Energy Supply Companies (ESCO's) and be market driven, as well as being a hallmark for further sustainability by for once targeting existing buildings.
It was also pointed out that this proposed legislation will force on simple low cost and even no-cost measures such as changing out incandescent light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent bulbs, and tune-ups. This means that for the most part, a large part of the effort will be easy on the building owner. In addition, any building owner that cannot for whatever reason obtain the needed financing to undertake the required upgrades will be deferred from the requirements until they can afford to do so.
It is also expected that this law will help owners see savings very fast, with paybacks within a year or two, and thus, want to do even more.
An effort to set a target of 20% reduction in energy use has been proposed.
Also emphasized by the panel is the what is know as the Human Effect, which means that it is not just the installation of retrofits and new equipment, BUT how the owners, property managers and tenants operate the building. For example, it is not uncommon to see an actual rise in consumption during the first year, as operators are not educated to the proper use of the new equipment or control system. In addition, the equipment's automated control system may not have been programmed properly, or even at all. This further underscores the need for annual benchmark evaluations and post-occupancy commissioning of buildings. In past meetings that I have attended on High Performance Buildings, it is not uncommon to see a building designed to be High Performance, but actually operate at LESS than code-required efficiency.
To further the Human Effect, sub-metering has been proposed, in which individual tenants would be responsible for their actual usage. This is is a thorny issue, and has been opposed in the courts. The Panel agreed, that while there are significant market driven incentives, regulatory measures will always be needed here to get landlords and tenants to work together.
This legislation involves three separate bills,and if approved, will be enforced by the Department of Buildings.
As we stand at the present, New York State is one of 42 states that utilizes the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) as its energy code. One of the main weakness in this code is that New York State has amended the code to allow for a 50 percent exclusion rate. What this means is that buildings are exempted from compliance with the code if they renovate less than 50% of the building or its sub-systems. In New York City (and for the most part in many other locations) buildings are often renovated floor by floor by tenants or occupants. Thus, a large part of buildings never face any need to comply with the newer IECC code.
Under the proposed NYC law, this will change, as fortunately, New York State allows for local municipalities to enact laws that are more stringent than the basic state code. A good example of this is right where I happen to live. The Town of Clarkstown, a northern suburb of NYC has already done this, with the enact of a code requiring ALL new residential construction to meet current Energy Star regulations. NYC will now adapt the IECC Code WITHOUT the 50% exclusion rule, thereby making it more stringent.
Under the proposed law, ALL buildings that are renovated will be required to comply. This simple change is expected to save 1 to 1.5 percent of carbon emissions over the next 20 years, helping NYC reach its goal of a 30 percent reduction by the year 2030. This law is critical to NYC, as most construction in NYC consists of renovation of existing, but sturdy, but energy-wasting buildings. NYC expects that 85 percent of buildings in existence today will be present in the year 2030.
The law has five points to it. They are: Lighting upgrades, Benchmarking, Audits and Retrofits, Green Workforce Development Training, and Green Building Financing.
Lighting upgrades will apply to any large building's lighting system, and will require that they be upgraded to meet the IECC code at least once at the time of renovation, or by December 1, 2022. Prior to December 1, 2022, this law will apply to all buildings on the tax lot maps with over 50,000 square feet. the law will NOT apply to renovations costing less than $50,000, and will not require any room to be upgraded more than once. On or after December 1, 2022, ALL building, with the exception of multifamily residential MUST meet the new code. In NYC it is estimated that 20 percent of all energy used in buildings is from lighting.
Benchmarking, which is the measurement of actual energy and other utility use of a building will be the second requirement of the new proposed law. It will need to be done on an annual basis, and will be a simple process that only will require basic data about the building and its utility bills to be entered into a free, on line data base tool, provided by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Commercial buildings will be required to enter information about tenant consumption, but residential apartment buildings will not need to do so.
This data will ultimately be placed in a data base in the Department of Finance's Assessment Roll. By doing so, this information can be used to further determining the value of a property, as well as creating a greater transparency regarding a building's actual consumption and operating costs. During the first several years after the law's enactment, this data will not be posted, to allow for building owners to become familiar with the benchmarking process. 2009 data will be required to be entered into the benchmarking data base by July 1, 2010. By September 11, 2011 it is expected that the first benchmarking data for city buildings will become available, and one to two years later, we will then see it for commercial and multifamily residential buildings.
Audits and Retrofits will be the third part of the new law. This will once again apply to all buildings larger than 50,000 square feet in area. It will feature a random rotating schedule, that will repeat every 10 years. A building will be required to undertake an energy audit of its central units, and perform any needed remediation to bring it up to code. It is estimated that there are 22,000 buildings in NYC that will fall under this law, meaning that 2200 buildings will be audited each year. Two types of improvements will be needed here: retro-commissioning and retrofit measures. Retro-commissioning refers to tune-ups of existing equipment, while retrofit measures will involve replacement or upgrading of outdated equipment. A national standard (ASHRAE) will be used for this part of the law, and will allow for specific requirements regarding needed training and experience of those individuals responsible for the needed inspections.
The first 10% of the buildings will thus come due by end of 2013, and early adapters will be rewarded by grandfathering those that choose to comply early, especially if they have done extensive energy upgrades since 2006. In addition, this part of the law dovetails into the next section, green workforce development and training. It is estimated that over 45% of the energy consumption in NYC comes from building central systems. Thus, the carbon savings here could be as much as 3%by 2030.
This part of the law will become effective immediately upon its enacted, but no energy efficiency report will be required to be submitted before December 31, 2013.
The fourth part of this new energy legislation will involve Green Workforce Development and Training. As this law will impact well over 2.5 billion square feet of NYC real estate, it is expected to create at least 19,000 construction jobs over the next 13 years. These will include commissioning, auditing, lighting upgrading, and maintenance jobs.
NYC has created the Working Group for Green Building Workforce Development. This includes people from New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) as well as the City of New York. The group will deal with the identification of workforce needs, training needs and equally importantly, spell out requirements for certification of these workers. The city is also working with U. S. Green Building Council -- New York (now to be called the Urban Green Council) to further these efforts. It is expected that the strategy will be developed by late 2009.
Lastly, a fifth part of the law, Green Building Financing will be established to help building owners comply with the law. It is recognized that while energy efficiency improvements pay for themselves over time, upfront costs can be great. As part of the effort, the City will establish the Greener Greater Buildings Loan Fund, which will be provided at no cost to the taxpayers of NYC. The City plans to apply for $16 million of the $80 million that was awarded to NYC from the Federal Stimulus money.
The Fund will broken up into two categories of buildings over 50,000 square feet. The first will be for buildings who's owners are in financial distress, while the second will be for buildings that have taken the first steps, and are thus "shovel-ready" but need additional help to complete the job. These loans will be structured so that the payments will be less than than the cost savings, which allows for the building owner to see the economic savings. As these loans are paid back, the Fund will then be replenished for future building owners to draw from. It is expected that this loan system will serve as an additional alternative to the existing rent-based energy efficiency financing. It will also serve as a model for for private lenders, by demonstrating that energy efficiency improvement loans can be viable based on the financial savings reaped from the work done.
A meeting sponsored by the New York Chapter (Urban Green Council) was held last Thursday on this subject. In addition to the five parts mentioned above, the meeting panelists included a sixth part -- The Energy Code, which I explained at the outset of this entry.
The speakers included Mark Colgrave from NYSERDA, Paul Rode from Johnson Controls, Jeff Broadsky, a real estate management consultant, Ashuk Gupta, another energy efficiency consultant, as well as the heads of the New York Chapter of USGBC. The panel pointed out that buildings account for 70% of Green House Gases, of which 32 % come from residential, 24% from commercial, and 12% from industrial sources.
The panelists also agreed that this will be a benefit to Energy Supply Companies (ESCO's) and be market driven, as well as being a hallmark for further sustainability by for once targeting existing buildings.
It was also pointed out that this proposed legislation will force on simple low cost and even no-cost measures such as changing out incandescent light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent bulbs, and tune-ups. This means that for the most part, a large part of the effort will be easy on the building owner. In addition, any building owner that cannot for whatever reason obtain the needed financing to undertake the required upgrades will be deferred from the requirements until they can afford to do so.
It is also expected that this law will help owners see savings very fast, with paybacks within a year or two, and thus, want to do even more.
An effort to set a target of 20% reduction in energy use has been proposed.
Also emphasized by the panel is the what is know as the Human Effect, which means that it is not just the installation of retrofits and new equipment, BUT how the owners, property managers and tenants operate the building. For example, it is not uncommon to see an actual rise in consumption during the first year, as operators are not educated to the proper use of the new equipment or control system. In addition, the equipment's automated control system may not have been programmed properly, or even at all. This further underscores the need for annual benchmark evaluations and post-occupancy commissioning of buildings. In past meetings that I have attended on High Performance Buildings, it is not uncommon to see a building designed to be High Performance, but actually operate at LESS than code-required efficiency.
To further the Human Effect, sub-metering has been proposed, in which individual tenants would be responsible for their actual usage. This is is a thorny issue, and has been opposed in the courts. The Panel agreed, that while there are significant market driven incentives, regulatory measures will always be needed here to get landlords and tenants to work together.
This legislation involves three separate bills,and if approved, will be enforced by the Department of Buildings.
Posted by Alan L. Englander at 5/11/2009 11:52 AM 
Categories: Green Building Financing, Benchmarking, Audits, Energy Code, Green Workforce DevelopmentTraining, Retrofits, Lighting Upgrades
Categories: Green Building Financing, Benchmarking, Audits, Energy Code, Green Workforce DevelopmentTraining, Retrofits, Lighting Upgrades
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