According to the New York Urban Green Council, about 85% of the city's buildings will still be standing in 2050. Considering that the city has an ambitious 80% emissions reduction target for that year, existing buildings will require significant improvements to reduce your environmental footprint. New construction typically achieves superior energy performance compared to renovated buildings, but demolishing and rebuilding an existing property is extremely expensive and unfeasible in most cases.
A well-planned and executed building retrofit can reduce the building's energy consumption by around 50%, while emissions decrease by 65%. New construction achieves an additional 5-10% energy efficiency, but this is a small gain compared to the cost of rebuilding it from scratch, not to mention the environmental impact of demolishing the old building. It may be several decades before the marginal performance gains of new construction offset the environmental and financial impact.
As with any engineering project, an unplanned approach is unlikely to produce good results in a building renovation. The first step is to assess the condition of your property and identify key areas of opportunity. These can then be analyzed individually in terms of technical and financial feasibility, creating an investment plan to retrofit the building.
What is the current condition of the building?
There are two complementary ways to evaluate your building's performance: Benchmarking tells you how well it performs compared to other properties of similar characteristics, while energy audits can provide a detailed analysis of energy consumption, making it easier to identify the best building upgrades. promising. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR score provides an excellent tool for buildings to compare their performance with similar buildings across the country – buildings with a score of 75 or higher earn ENERGY STAR Certification where the maximum value is 100. Consider that in New York, buildings above certain size limits are required by law to assess their energy use (Local Law 84) and conduct energy audits every 10 years (Local Law 87).
Proposing energy efficiency measures without knowing the actual condition of a building is largely a trial and error approach, and owners are strongly advised against it. On the other hand, benchmarking allows homeowners to set realistic goals, while energy audits provide a feasibility study. Energy audits can also reveal recommissioning opportunities: small adjustments to operational parameters and controls, along with simple repairs, that produce performance improvements at minimal cost.
When an energy audit is completed, the total cost of all proposed measures may be too high for building owners to undertake all at once. If this is the case, a set of measures may be prioritized due to their ease of implementation or high financial return. Upgrades to electrical systems tend to offer the highest return on investment due to the high cost of electricity, but upgrades to combustion-based appliances tend to eliminate the most emissions. Keep in mind that some measures may be mandatory under New York building codes and ordinances. For example, all buildings using #4 heating oil must convert to #2 or a cleaner option by 2030, and all lighting systems in buildings covered by Local Law 88 must be updated to comply with the Energy Conservation Code of New York by 2025.
Financial analysis of building modernization also provides a basis for investment decisions. Companies often use financing for major building upgrades to minimize the impact on their cash flow. Building upgrades that provide operational savings greater than debt service savings are especially attractive as they can pay their own costs.
Implementing the suggested building upgrades
NYC has a wide range of building codes, and which ones apply depend on the type of project. The technical requirements are demanding in all aspects, but especially in the case of fire protection systems and combustion-based appliances. The best recommendation is to work with a qualified engineering company throughout the entire process, from design to commissioning.
Many homeowners decide to start with lighting upgrades , for several reasons outlined below. In fact, the US EPA recommends these building upgrades as the first step in any major building modernization.
- The procedure is simple and less disruptive than other upgrades, while offering a payback period of just a few years and, in certain cases, less than a year.
- Lighting upgrades may be eligible for cash rebates from Con Edison, further increasing your bang for your buck. Depending on building features and location, some lighting upgrades may be available free of charge.
- Lighting upgrades are not dependent on other building systems and in turn can achieve synergy with subsequent systems. For example, LED lighting is easier to integrate with building controls and also reduces the project burden for air conditioning upgrades.
- Compared to other building upgrades, lighting retrofits are relatively simple to design and approve.
After lighting upgrades, the recommendation is to proceed with measures that reduce heating and cooling loads . Financial analysis is very important here, as these measures tend to have a wide variation in cost. For example, caulking and caulking are quick and affordable, while upgrading to high-performance windows can require a significant capital and time commitment.
A logical next step is HVAC, as previous upgrades tend to reduce your load. As a result, new equipment can be specified with greater efficiency and lower capacity, enhancing the savings achieved. From a technical standpoint, it makes sense to upgrade ventilation systems first: many ventilation systems in New York are oversized, increasing the required heating and cooling capacity due to excessive airflow. With an optimally sized ventilation system, it is possible to achieve adequate room temperatures with less heating and cooling. In addition to optimizing capacity, ventilation systems can be equipped with energy recovery to further reduce heating and cooling loads.
Working with qualified design professionals is important throughout the building upgrade process, but the risks tend to be higher when property managers are dealing with HVAC. These upgrades are expensive and disruptive, but they can also deliver significant performance improvements. However, for the same reason, it is very important to get them right – HVAC systems involve a complex interaction between many components that cannot be analyzed in isolation.
