Building Codes Lag Behind Mayor’s Vision

The New York Times

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: September 15, 2007

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s ambitious sustainability plan for New York’s future makes expanding the use of alternative power sources a top priority. It specifically calls for more small rooftop electricity generators that burn cleanly and reduce peak demand on Con Ed.

But a plan, no matter how visionary, means little until the nuts and bolts of building codes and regulations have been put into place. And as David Birnbaum, the president of a Manhattan telecommunications firm, has discovered, bureaucratic delay and red tape can endlessly snarl a project, even one so encouraged by the administration. Mr. Birnbaum’s company, Public Interest Network Services, hired a local engineering firm last year to install a state-of-the-art, natural gas-fired 65-kilowatt microturbine on the roof of the company’s building on West 17th Street in Chelsea.

The new unit, installed in February, provides exactly the kind of distributed power generation called for in Mr. Bloomberg’s 25-year plan for a greener city, which was released in April. It will supply all the company’s electricity, and the surplus heat it generates will run a chiller to keep the business’s computers and telecommunications hardware cool.

But Mr. Birnbaum has been unable to turn on his $1 million worth of new equipment because the city still is caught up in regulatory procedures. All that is missing on the new setup is two feet of pipe where the natural gas meter should go, and it cannot be installed until the city gives its final approval.

Although there are thousands of these microturbine generators around the country, Mr. Birnbaum’s would be among the first to be legally installed in New York City. “It’s been a horribly painful and expensive process,” Mr. Birnbaum said. The seven-month delay has been costly for his company and its customers, mostly nonprofit groups and nongovernmental organizations, he said.

On the hottest days this summer, he had to redirect all air-conditioning from administrative offices to the equipment rooms to keep the computers from overheating. That could have been avoided if the new microturbine had been operational, he said.

Kate Lindquist, press secretary for the New York City Department of Buildings, said final approvals on the unit have been delayed because the city has to update its building regulations, which do not cover new technology like microturbines. A city task force is putting together a new rule in the building code that addresses safe installation of the generators in commercial buildings, residential buildings and schools.

“We expect the rule to be completed in the coming weeks,” Ms. Lindquist said.

Microturbines are basically like jet engines bolted to a roof. Instead of producing thrust, they cogenerate electricity and heat, meeting another goal of the sustainability plan. Cory Glick, president of Cogeneration Contractors, the Brooklyn firm that installed the microturbine at Public Interest Network Services, said that while the technology is new to the city, more than 4,000 generators have been installed around the world.

Mr. Glick said the turbines burn cleanly and are so efficient that the equipment can pay for itself in a few years. He said that his company had installed a number of them in the metropolitan area outside New York, but that working in the city presented special challenges. Mr. Birnbaum decided to install a microturbine because his company was growing and he needed more telecommunications equipment, which would generate more heat. After the 2003 blackout, he wanted to ensure that his customers would have uninterrupted service.

He said he considered moving to a larger space outside the city but decided to stay put and upgrade his electricity supply. Since some of his customers are environmental groups, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, he felt it was appropriate to try something new. “We thought it would be great to demonstrate that with new technology you can reduce your energy needs, even on a scale like ours,” Mr. Birnbaum said. “We were willing to make the investment not only for financial reasons, but also because we thought it was the right thing to do.”

He settled on a microturbine, which would produce all the company’s electricity. A connection to the Con Ed grid would be maintained as a backup source of electricity. Plans for the unit’s installation were approved by the Buildings Department last year. But then the city changed its position on the turbines. Partly because of safety concerns raised by the Sept. 11 attack and partly because owners all over the city were starting to install new types of generators not covered by the building code, the city decided to upgrade regulations related to this type of equipment.

Last October, the Buildings Department joined with the Fire Department of New York, other branches of city government and industry representatives to form a task force to study turbines and standardize installation rules. Projects already under way, like the one at Public Interest Network Services, were allowed to go forward but had to undergo repeated inspections while the new standards — on issues like clearance from lot lines and installation material — were developed.

The last few issues to be hammered out involve safety for building tenants and firefighters.
Mr. Glick and Mr. Birnbaum hope to get final approval on their microturbine in the next few weeks. “I understand it, and I respect it. I’m just frustrated,” Mr. Glick said of the regulatory hurdles. “But I think we’re at the point where we can start to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

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