Comments on: Empire State Building Efficiency Retrofit Model Rolls Out Across US

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 19:35:00 +0000

“Once all tenant spaces are upgraded, the building will save $4.4 million per year”

$20 invested. $4.4 annual savings. 4.5 year breakeven. About a 16% ROI.

By: ww

ww — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 19:13:00 +0000

That is really cool.
Well done project team and ESCO!
Really impressed.
Windows replacement gives so much savings. What was return on investment?

By: No Longer Mathtified

No Longer Mathtified — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 15:55:00 +0000

It all becomes clear. Thank you.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 04:04:00 +0000

Most of the money was for a general reworking of the building. When the project started in 2009 it was expected renovation would cost $500 million and the efficiency upgrade an additional $20 million.

Like just about every construction project it looks like they ran over on the non-energy efficiency part.

“Owners of the New York City landmark announced on Monday that they will be beginning a renovation this summer expected to reduce the skyscraper’s energy use by 38 percent a year by 2013, at an annual savings of $4.4 million. The retrofit project will add $20 million to the $500 million building makeover already under way that aims to attract larger corporate occupants at higher rents.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/science/earth/07empire.html?_r=0

By: Mathtified

Mathtified — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:40:00 +0000

If this retrofit cost $550 million and it saves $5 million a year, would it not take 110 years to recoup the cost, not counting any financial costs? How does a $20 million contact with Johnson cover that? How does this add up? I’m all in favor of it working, saving energy and so on, but how does it make sense?

By: RobS

RobS — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:29:00 +0000

Energy efficient lighting is the other low hanging fruit, even more so in high temperature regions because an innefficient light is not just a light but a radiant heater with as much as 90% of the energy it consumes simply going to heat, this means that A/C in buildings with innefficient lights has to first fight against thousands of little heaters before it can actually begin to cool. When you switch say from a 50W halogen downlight to an 8W LED about 40 of those 42w savings are in the form of reduced heat production. So for every kw saved on lighting you save an additional Kw of cooling. This is an oft forgotten benefit of lighting upgrades, I read a case study of a tropical resort who switched to LED lighting in their lobbies etc that essentially ran 24 hours a day, this resulted in a savings of something on the order of 20kw of continuous demand, their business case had them paying off the cost of the retrofit in 2-3 years, however what had not been accounted for was that the load on their A/C system to maintain the same ambient temperature also fell by almost 20kw, doubling the expected power savings, increasing comfort in the resort’s buildings and halving the payback period on the lighting upgrade.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:03:00 +0000

We’ve got a bit over 600 coal plants right now. As much as 20% of them could be shut down in the next four years due to EPA regulations.

We need to pour on the renewables and pull down demand with efficiency.

By: RobS

RobS — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 02:30:00 +0000

The cumulative emissions is a slightly sneaky way of inflating the apparent size of the number, listing an annual savings would be more informative because then one can compare it against the annual output of various power plants. Given that the 849 coal plants worth of power is being saved over 17 years that is the annual output of 50 coal plants, there are about 500 coal plants in the US so this efficiency measure alone could see 10% of all coal plants made redundant. Of course other fuel switching will also occur so decreases in coal usage could easily be 30-50% even as a low case scenario.
Renewables now produce about 15% of US electricity, this is growing rapidly, however the cheapest way to grow it even faster is not to build more but to reduce total consumption thus making what we already have a greater proportion of the total. Ay solar installer worth his wage will tell you the fist thing to do if you want to install solar panels to offset your home consumption is to invest heavily in reducing consumption and increasing efficiency, that is no different on a national scale.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:58:00 +0000

“As part of his climate action plan,President Obama renewed his first-term commitment to efficiency standards with an ambitious, but achievable goal: reducing carbon pollution by a cumulative 3 billion metric tons by 2030 through standards for appliances and federal buildings.

Although, as the president himself acknowledged, “these standards don’t sound all that sexy,” they can prevent a huge amount of carbon pollution. To put how much into context, preventing 3 billion tons would equal the annual emissions of 849 coal plants — greater than the total number in operation in the United States today. Or, as the president noted, preventing that much pollution is “the equivalent of planting 7.6billion trees and letting them grow for ten years, all while doing the dishes.”

And thanks to progress made during Obama’s first term, this goal is well within reach: over half of those emissions reductions are already in the pipeline from actions taken during the first few years of his presidency.

Despite these many benefits, when Obama took office, DOE was woefully behind on its deadlines to set new and updated efficiency standards, some by more than a decade. In a 2009 memorandum, President Obama urged Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to meet all deadlines going forward.

The president’s clear commitment — combined with Secretary Chu’s leadership, the hard work of DOE staff, and court-ordered deadlines for along list of products — resulted in new standards that will save Americans a net $77 billion and result in almost 30 quads of cumulative energy savings by 2035, equivalent to about 30 percent of U.S. annual energy use.”

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/How-Obamas-Climate-Plan-Will-Boost-US-Energy-Efficiency

Let me repeat for the “Obama has done nothing crowd” –

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And thanks to progress made during Obama’s first term, this goal is well within reach: over half of those emissions reductions are already in the pipeline from actions taken during the first few years of his presidency.
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