On Thursday, September 8, 2011, Harvard Graduate School of Design hosted Anthony Malkin of Malkin Holdings, on Powerful Lessons from Reawakening the World's Most Famous Office Building, explaining how they greened the Empire State Building through "an eight-month modeling and analysis project which will save 38 percent of the building's energy and $4.4 million annually." The energy efficiency retrofits cost 3% over the usual renovation costs and that investment will pay for itself within three years.
According to Malkin, 80% of the energy used in NYC is consumed in buildings and, if we work on the biggest buildings first, retrofitting the 25 biggest buildings in NYC could result in a 20% reduction in the city's total energy use, based upon his experience with the Empire State.
Malkin's partners were Rocky Mountain Institute,Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) and Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) and
...the Empire State Building team identified eight economically viable projects that will provide a significant return on investment, both environmentally and financially:
* Direct Digital Controls (DDC),
* Tenant Lighting, Daylighting, and Plugs,
* Variable Air Volume (VAV) Air-Handling Units (AHUs),
* Retrofit Chiller Plant,
* Building Windows,
* Tenant Energy Management Program,
* Radiative Barrier, and
* Tenant Demand Control Ventilation (DCV)
http://bet.rmi.org/...
They rebuilt the old windows to a standard of R-8, saving quite a lot through recycling, and did such simple things as insulating between the radiators and the exterior walls. The energy use in the Empire State Building is now 1.9 watts per square foot, where the average NYC office building uses 5.5 to 7 watts per foot. The Empire State Building is being certified as a LEED Gold building.
Lessons Learned
In the process of developing specific project recommendations, the team uncovered several key lessons for the retrofit of large multi-tenant commercial office buildings.
Five of the most important are described below – both to help others take on their own retrofit projects and to encourage further research.
Developing Robust Solutions Requires the Coordination of a Multitude of Key Stakeholders
Maximizing Energy Savings Profitably Requires Planning and Coordination
Tension Exists Between Maximizing Profitability and Maximizing CO2 Reductions
Creating a Replicable Process for a Whole Building Retrofit is Needed
Increasing Energy Prices Due to Carbon Regulation Do Not Significantly Affect the ESB Retrofit Recommendation
http://www.esbnyc.com/...
Malkin mentioned the Green Print Foundation:
Our mission is to lead the global real estate community toward value-enhancing carbon reduction strategies that support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) goals for global greenhouse gas stabilization by 2030. http://www.greenprintfoundation.org
and that the Appraisal Institute of America is preparing energy standards now.
In the Q and A period, I brought up Ed Mazria and the Architecture 2030 Project :
Architecture 2030’s mission is to rapidly transform the U.S. and global Building Sector from the major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions to a central part of the solution to the climate change, energy consumption, and economic crises. Our goal is straightforward: to achieve a dramatic reduction in the climate-change-causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the Building Sector by changing the way buildings and developments are planned, designed and constructed.
http://www.architecture2030.org/
There are sustainable cities events at both MIT and Harvard next week, in particular A Roadmap to Sustainable Infrastructures & Green Cities Conference
September 14-16, 2011, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/...
More Boston area events at http://hubevents.blogspot.com