Working with the New York City Council, Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilman Jim Gennaro, we developed a “Greener, Greater Buildings Plan,” a comprehensive package of legislation that was signed into law in December 2009. The Plan, the most far-reaching municipal effort to cut carbon emissions in the nation, will ensure that existing buildings take costeffective steps to become more efficient.
The Plan has four legislative components: (1) creating a local New York City energy code to allow us to tailor energy standards to our larger buildings and ensure that as buildings perform renovations they will get more efficient; (2) requiring large commercial buildings to upgrade their lighting over the next 15 years and install sub-meters to measure energy use in individual large commercial tenant spaces, which will help reduce electrical use that takes place in tenantcontrolled spaces (a change to the bill which was added during the legislative process and will align incentives so that retrofits take place); (3) requiring building owners to benchmark their energy usage
online to allow owners and potential purchasers to compare buildings’ energy consumption, which will reward the most efficient buildings; and (4) requiring each building to conduct energy audits once every decade and implement energyefficient maintenance practices, which will realize major savings and identify opportunities for investments that will pay for themselves.
And because we believe that government should lead by example, the Plan requires all large city-owned buildings to conduct audits and complete energy upgrades that pay for themselves within seven years. The city is currently investing 10 percent of its annual energy budget—$80 million to $100 million a year—as part of the Mayor’s goal reducing municipal government’s output of greenhouse gases 30 percent by 2017. To date, 62 energy efficiency projects in city-owned facilities have been completed, including upgrades in schools, sanitation garages, police precincts and cultural and recreational facilities. These projects cost $16 million and will pay for themselves within seven years by saving New York City $2.3 million a year in reduced electricity, natural gas and oil bills. An additional 118 projects, currently in the pipeline, will save the city an additional $20 million a year and reduce emissions by an estimated 85,000 metric tons of CO2.
All told, this comprehensive approach will have the equivalent impact of making all of Oakland, Calif., carbon-neutral while saving New Yorkers $700 million a year in energy costs and creating 17,800 jobs.
Increasing energy efficiency is only part of the solution. We are also working to get more of our energy from renewable sources. Last year, the city joined Con Edison, the Long Island Power Authority, the New York Power Authority and others in a collaborative effort to create an offshore wind farm. The project would likely be designed for 350 megawatts (MW) of generation, with the ability to expand it to 700 MW, making it the largest offshore wind project in the country. Through the Solar American Cities program we are also launching Solar Zones to facilitate the installation of solar PV on private buildings, and the Department of Buildings is developing a permitting process to enable the installation of building-sited wind projects.
By reducing our energy consumption and increasing the use of renewables in the city, we can save New Yorkers money, create thousands of jobs, improve our air quality and combat global warming— leading to a greener, greater New York.
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Rohit Aggarwala is the director of the mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.
