It All Adds Up: This Was New York’s Hottest Summer

Richard Perry/The New York Times

Fans at the United States Open felt the heat before the first match started on Tuesday. On Monday, the tournament ran through 80,000 pounds of ice cubes.

By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Published: August 31, 2010

With one final, fitting blast of 96-degree heat on Tuesday, the summer of 2010 went down in the National Weather Service’s record books as the hottest ever in New York City.

Hotter than the previous high of 77.3 degrees set in 1966, when more than 1,100 deaths were attributed to heat that repeatedly exceeded 100 degrees. Hotter than 2006, when a heat wave set off a blackout in northern Queens that left more than 100,000 residents without power for days.

But in this record-breaking season — defined by the Weather Service as June through August — there was no cataclysm, no singular event that was likely to define a three-month period when the temperature averaged 77.8 degrees. Instead, the summer of 2010 might be more properly measured in more subtle ways.

For Sal Medina, a newsstand operator from the Bronx, it could be measured by the number of frozen water bottles that he slipped into his pants this week to stay cool (three).

For John Natuzzi, it could be all the ice cubes used during the first day of the United States Open tennis tournament on Monday (80,000 pounds).

For lifeguards, it could be the number of total visitors to the city’s beaches (17.2 million).

For executives at Consolidated Edison, it would surely be the number of 90-degree days the utility struggled through without any widespread disruptions of its power network (34).

Tally it all up and the sum of the last three months is a rarely interrupted stretch of hot days that forced New Yorkers to keep cool in ways both traditional and creative.

Mr. Medina, 56, who lives in Pelham Bay, could barely stand to be inside his metal-jacketed newsstand at Clinton and Delancey Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. To cool off, he devised a system using frozen pint-sized bottles of Poland Spring water.

He would tuck three inside the waistband of his pants. A fourth he would sling in a plastic bag whose handles he would knot just under his chin, holding the icy cylinder against the back of his neck.

Even with that gear, Mr. Medina said he had quit early a few days this summer, heading home at 3 p.m. on the hottest days, instead of the usual 6. The heat, he said, “affects your whole nervous system, makes you grouchy; it makes you so you can’t stand your customers.”

At Natuzzi Brothers Ice Company in Queens, the phones ring nonstop once the temperature hits 90, Mr. Natuzzi said. This summer, he said, his company has been supplying dry ice to ice-cream stores to keep their products frozen, a request he said he rarely got last summer.

The shortage of orders during the cool early months of last summer led to significant losses, Mr. Natuzzi said, but this summer has been a different story. The company, whose warehouse holds 40 tons of ice, sold out its supply during the heat wave that started on the July 4 weekend. It has been running its delivery trucks up to 15 hours a day since then.

“It’s been quite a ride this summer,” Mr. Natuzzi said.

Exhausted as he is, it is not quite over. His company supplies ice to the food-service operations at the United States Open, which runs for two weeks. On the first day, the Open used about 20,000 pounds more than usual, he said. “I’ll look back and say that this is one summer I’ll never forget,” Mr. Natuzzi said.

At Con Edison, the summer of 2010 will be memorable for what did and did not happen. In the past three months, the utility’s customers drew more power off its grid than during any previous three-month period, according to data compiled by the company. But through successive heat waves, the electric distribution system held up, with only occasional localized disruptions.

“For two days we suffered,” said Theo Trilivas, 65, a retired plumber who lost power in his home in Astoria, Queens, in July. “No power. No cooking. No A.C. No lights. Nothing. We had to throw out everything in the freezer.”

The growing demand for power from residential customers has been one of the bigger surprises to Con Ed officials this summer. Of the company’s 36 distribution networks, 14 — all in residential areas — exceeded the forecast for peak demand, said John F. Miksad, a senior vice president who oversees the company’s electric operations. Reflecting the weak state of the economy, power usage by commercial customers declined this summer, he said.

The increased use of air-conditioning has been one constant of life in the metropolitan region. According to Con Ed’s estimates, 6.6 million air-conditioners are in use in its service area, and that number is rising by at least 170,000 a year.

Sam Sharma and his wife tried placing buckets of ice cubes on window sills and in front of fans in their apartment on the second floor of a house in Woodside, Queens. But eventually they broke down and did what so many other New Yorkers have done: they bought an air-conditioner.

“We have it in the living room and only run it when it is extreme heat, and then only for a few hours,” said Mr. Sharma, an immigrant from Nepal who works as a parking lot attendant. “Maybe we used it 10 days this whole summer. It’s expensive.”

In search of relief, some people actually sought out the city. On Monday, Sharon Fredman, 38, a Web consultant from Tenafly, N.J., had run out of suburban options to entertain her daughter, Margot, 8, and keep her cool at the same time. So she drove in for the day to let Margot splash around in a sprinkler in Tompkins Square Park. “When it’s 90 degrees,” Ms. Fredman said, “it’s equally hot everywhere.”

When New Yorkers sought to escape the heat indoors, they flocked to the beaches, particularly Coney Island. According to the city’s parks department, total attendance at Coney Island’s beach slightly exceeded 12.8 million people, more than triple the total from 2009.

“There were tremendous increases at all the beaches,” said Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner. “The beaches were our natural air-conditioners.”

Many of those beachgoers were repeat visitors, like Stephen Fybish, who said he went to Coney Island or neighboring Brighton Beach to swim in the ocean 11 times this summer. He said that he found the sand to be crowded some days but that he always had ample room to swim.

A weather historian who has kept detailed records on temperatures in the city for many years, Mr. Fybish was already looking ahead to September and calculating what sort of weather it would take to extend the hottest-ever distinction. By his reckoning, the average temperature for the month has to be higher than 71 degrees for New York to have its hottest June-through-September period on record.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/nyregion/01summer.html?_r=1

Wall Street Journal
China Real Time Report

EHi Looks to Untangle Traffic Jams in China

From Venture Capital Dispatch:

Like many Chinese citizens, Ray Zhang is worried about his country’s parking issues, traffic snarls, pollution problems, and increasing demand on foreign oil imports.

Associated Press

A truck driver waits alongside the traffic jam in Beijing.

Zhang, who is the chief executive of Shanghai-based eHi Car Rental Co., thinksChina’s poor traffic situation can be ameliorated by promoting a car-sharing culture.

“China needs a car-sharing and resource-sharing option more than any other nation on earth, due to its population base, geographical size, and energy, environmental, and traffic concerns,” he said.

His company is poised to be at the forefront of this movement, raising a new $70 million investment led by Goldman Sachs Group. The company previously raised $95 million over three rounds of funding from venture capital firms CDH Ventures, Ignition Partners and Qiming Venture Partners, which all reinvested in the latest round.

Since its founding four years ago, eHi has grown into one of the largest domestic rental car companies in the country. It has 120 rental outlets in 34 cities and offers a chauffeur service in 70 cities, with a fleet of more than 4,000 cars.

Zhang said the new round would primarily be used to build out the company’s fleet of rental cars, which will include a few hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles for markets in China that can support them.

“China’s car rental industry is at its infancy,” said Zhang, and that the market for car rental companies was wide open.

As it is, this new funding for eHi is set against a backdrop of traffic problems. The capital of Beijing has added on average 1,900 cars per day to its roads in the first six months of the year, and the city already has some of the worst traffic in the world, according to a survey conducted by International Business Machines Corp.

Highlighting how bad the traffic situation in China’s cities has become, on Monday, state media reported in China reported on a 62-mile (100-kilometer) traffic jam on the Beijing-Tibet expressway.

As China’s consumers continue to buy cars in increasing numbers the problem is becoming more severe, according to Zhang. “China cannot go on a U.S. auto consumption model,” he said. “And eHi’s mission is to help China avoid taking such a disastrous route…we promote this lifestyle and hope to raise the consciousness of China’s consumers.”

In late December, eHi launched a car-sharing service in Beijing and Shanghai. It’s similar to the Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar Inc., which is now preparing for an initial public offering in the U.S. that’s being underwritten, in part, by Goldman Sachs.

The investment by Goldman Sachs also sets up eHi as a viable challenger to China’s other domestic car rental giant, China Auto Rental Ltd.

That Beijing-based company recently raised a significant round from Legend Capital, a subsidiary of the Legend Group, which also owns the computer manufacturer Lenovo. One of China’s most famous local investment firms, Legend reportedly invested approximately 1 billion yuan ($147 million) into China Auto Rental. Other investors in the company include the China fund of U.S. venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Zhang said that China Auto Rental isn’t so much a competitor as a colleague in a market that’s far too vast for any one company to dominate.

“It is our judgment that the largest car rental industry will be in China and therefore the largest car rental company will be in China in the future,” Zhang said. “We think there will be a lot of new demands from consumers and corporations alike for our service [and] therefore we don’t view that the China Auto and Legend deal is a threat to our growth and competition, rather we view it as a healthy oligopoly in the market.”

– Jonathan Shieber

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/08/27/ehi-looks-to-untangle-traffic-jams-in-china/

Seattle Transportation Watch

Electric vehicles: Is Seattle ready for the charge?

A prototype of the all-electric Ford Focus. (Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com)

The all-electric Ford Focus won't hit the market until 2011 but I got a chance to drive a prototype Thursday in South Lake Union.

The ride is smooth and quiet, and it feels strange to push down the pedal without the rumble of an engine.

But the bigger story is how Seattle's preparing for a wave of electric vehicles that soon will hit the streets. Ford, on a 14-city tour to promote five new electric and hybrid models due out between now and 2012, stopped in Seattle to announce a partnership with the city in preparing the electric grid and infrastructure. There was a forum and a chance to test drive the Focus.

Already, Seattle is one of the markets selected for early release of Nissan's all-electric Leaf. In conjunction with that, the federally-funded "EV Project," a massive study of EV driving habits and demands, will provide about 1,500 public-use charging stations around the Seattle area. Officials are concentrating on the fine details, including where to put them and how utilities will deal with the expected surge in demand for electricity.

Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin said Thursday the city would streamline permitting to build charging stations, add signs, and help to provide "access for all users."

"We are committed to doing everything we can to make sure Seattle is plug-in ready," Conlin said.

Seattle City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco said the utility expects to have plenty of power to accommodate the expected increase in demand. The more uncertain question is whether distribution lines have enough capacity, which depends on where plug-in owners live and how many are concentrated in one area.

"Depending on how many of these vehicles are located on different meters, that could have an impact on whether we need to upgrade the feeder to handle the load. If everyone decides to buy electric vehicles in one neighborhood, we might have an issue to deal with," he said.

City Light's engineers will monitor the permitting for electric charging stations and are studying how to respond if there is a problem. He said he's hopeful that public-private partnerships would help pay for providing access to charging stations. "None of the issues we're looking at today are insurmountable," he said.

Consumer data already indicates that once someone purchases a hybrid, surrounding neighbors tend to follow suit, leading to a clustering effect, said Mike Tinskey, Ford's manager of Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure.

There's also the potential strain on the system if everyone recharges at once. Microsoft has teamed with Ford to apply its energy-costs monitoring program Hohm to electric vehicles. It will help plug-in owners determine when are the most efficient and affordable times to recharge.

Conlin and others celebrated the potential that electric vehicles offer in weaning society from fossil fuels and helping stimulate the economy. Mayor Mike McGinn said transportation accounts for 50 percent of carbon emissions in the Northwest. And City Light produces mostly hydropower, and is a carbon-neutral utility.

McGinn said it's going to take a wide range of approaches to reducing fossil fuel use. That includes conserving how much we drive, developing mixed-use neighborhoods so we don't have to go so far, using cleaner fuels and alternate modes of transportation such as electric cars, bikes, walking and transit.

"I think we're starting to look at the transportation sector the way we used to look at our electricity sector in looking at how can we conserve and how can we use less," he said.

Experts think home-charging stations will provide enough spark to get the average commuter to and from work without running out of fuel (1,000 free home-charging stations will be provided at no-cost to Nissan Leaf owners selected to participate in the EV Project). The five-seat Leaf reportedly gets a top range of 100 miles on its 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery. Same with the Ford Focus (although Thursday's prototype ran out of spark after a few hours of test drives). To help ease "range anxiety," city and state leaders are trying to build out a network of fast-charging public stations where drivers can top off if needed. In addition to the EV project, Seattle received a $500,000 federal grant to install 50 charging stations on city properties. Twenty-six will be installed next year, with the first one at the Seattle Municipal Tower. King County also plans to install 200 charging stations at transit park-and-rides, vanpool sites, and motor pool lots.

With help from a $1.32 million federal grant, the state Transportation Department plans to turn Interstate 5 into the nation's first "electric highway" with enough charging stations so electric vehicles can make the entire 276-mile trip from the Canadian border to the Oregon state line.

Ford has included Redmond in its Blue Oval "ChargePoint" Program, which will provide 5,000 free home-charging stations to some of the first buyers of Ford's all-electric vehicles. Ford teamed with Coulomb Technologies, which received a $15 million stimulus grant to help pay for the program.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/transportation/archives/219471.asp

Cities scramble to woo first wave of electric vehicles

By Julie Wernau / Chicago Tribune  |   Friday, August 27, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Automotive

CHICAGO — It’s not enough to be charged up about electric vehicles coming later this year; cities have to prove they’re plug-worthy.

The makers of electric cars are conducting a nationwide dating game of sorts to determine which cities get the vehicles first. Hoping for widespread electric vehicle adoption, the carmakers are rolling out first in cities where motorists will encounter the fewest headaches.

In unprepared cities, too many vehicles charging at once can cause power outages. Owners who seek permits for home charging stations, which can charge vehicles in far less time, can run into paperwork nightmares. And cities that lack charging infrastructure risk the possibility of stranded motorists.

"Since Henry Ford introduced the motor vehicle, it’s been, ’Where can I find a gas station?’ And those were pretty prevalent. This is completely different," said Suzanne Malec-McKenna, commissioner of the city of Chicago’s Department of Environment.

Nissan, Ford and other electric vehicle makers said they look at three factors in picking cities for rollouts: large numbers of hybrid owners — a sign electric cars will be embraced — friendly public policy and supportive utilities.

"We need to get the right policies in place, moving forward, soon. And when I say soon, I mean get them in place over the next six months to a year," said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago, which is participating in the consortium.

The Department of Energy forecasts that 100 million hybrid or electric cars will be on U.S. roads by 2020. In particular, policymakers are preparing for the expected popularity of Nissan’s Leaf. With its low price point of $25,280 (after a $7,500 federal tax credit) and Nissan’s promises of nationwide availability, the Leaf is compared to the Toyota Prius in terms of its potential for widescale adoption.

Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison is investigating the potential impact — positive and negative — that electric vehicles could have on the grid. Hybrid ownerships tend to cluster in particular neighborhoods, and early EV reservations are showing a similar trend. That portends a lot of charging in particular areas, and potential breakdowns.

"That vehicle is going to be the largest discretionary load on the home," said Mike Tinskey, manager of sustainability activities at Ford Motor Co. "What if you had a neighborhood with 10 electric vehicles and they’re all on the same transformer? That’s a real problem for utilities, and they want to be able to manage that."

In neighborhoods, transformers step down high-voltage electricity for residential use. A single pole-top transformer serves three to six homes. If there is overuse, it can lead to power outages or decrease the transformer’s lifespan. In some neighborhoods, transformers are already strained, as they were not designed for the demands of large-screen TVs, hot tubs and air conditioners.

And although utilities can track for clustering of electric-vehicle owners by pulling permits for home charging stations, there are also consumers such as Chris VanKula, a 39-year-old account executive in Chicago, who plans to forgo paying an additional $2,200 or so for a home charging station.

"I don’t think we even need it. I’d just go without it," said VanKula, who described his wife and himself as the type of people who only drive if they "wimp out" in the winter. That may work for some people who drive infrequently and don’t mind the 20 hours it takes to charge a Leaf on a regular 120-volt current. With an upgrade to a 240-volt home charging station, the charge takes just seven or eight hours.

Commonwealth Edison may consider transformer upgrades in certain neighborhoods, said Anne Pramaggiore, the utility’s president and chief operating officer.  Still, it’s not yet clear who would pay for any needed upgrades.

"In the way we structure our rates, there are certain upgrades that customers pay for individually because they are beyond the standard. I suspect there will be debate about whether this fits in that category," Pramaggiore said.

To encourage charging at night when overall power demand is lower, Commonwealth Edison is considering offering better rates to those who charge at night to "smart" devices that choose the best time to charge a vehicle.

Commonwealth Edison also is testing devices that allow electric cars and transformers to automatically adjust the rate and timing of charges in the event too many vehicles are charging at the same time, said Dan Gabel, manager of electric vehicles. Commonwealth Edison sees a point at which car owners could even choose to "sell back" electricity in their car batteries when there is high demand on the grid.  "We really see this as just another part of a smart home," Gabel said.

Gabel said mid-level charging stations would likely be placed where vehicles are likely to be parked for longer periods — like transportation centers and stadiums or at businesses such as Whole Foods Market or Starbucks.

"For any electric vehicle maker to be successful, there has to a charging infrastructure," said Rick Bourgoise, director of communications for Smart USA. "Your car does you no good unless you have somewhere to plug it in and charge it up."

About 100 charging stations are expected to be deployed through a U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities grant. The consortium will review proposals in September and begin installation as early as November. To meet grant requirements, the charging infrastructure must be operational by 2012.

Public charging stations are important because they eliminate what automakers commonly refer to as "range anxiety." Without enough stations, drivers tend to worry they will be stranded and are less likely to rely on electric vehicles as their primary means of transportation.

The range of electric vehicles varies according to temperature and climate. Although vehicles such as the Leaf and Smart Fortwo have the ability to cool down or heat up while still plugged in, to maintain that temperature while on the road, the vehicle draws from the battery. A spokeswoman for AAA said that although it is reviewing several options, it does not yet have a way to charge a stranded electric vehicle, other than to tow it to the nearest charging station.

———

HERE COME THE PLUG-INS:

Chevrolet Volt:

—Price: $41,000 ($33,500 after federal tax credit)

—Range: 340 miles (40 miles battery, 300 miles gas)

—Expected U.S. launch date: November

—Initial launch locations: California, New York, Michigan, Texas, New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington, D.C.

—Number of launch vehicles: 4,400 vehicles in 2010; 10,000 in 2011; and 45,000 in 2012

Nissan Leaf:

—Price: $32,780 ($25,280 after federal tax credit)

—Range: 100 miles

—Expected U.S. launch date: December

—Initial launch locations: Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Tennessee; Texas and Hawaii in January; North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Alabama and Washington, D.C., in April; nationwide in 2012.

—Number of launch vehicles: 8,500 pre-orders. Production to begin in 2010 of 50,000 vehicles per year.

Smart Fortwo electric drive:

—Price: Initially, $599 per month for four-year lease

—Range: 84 miles

—Expected U.S. launch date: October

—Initial launch locations: Portland, Ore.; California’s Bay Area; Indianapolis; Orlando, Fla.; the Interstate Highway 95 corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C.

—Number of launch vehicles: 250 test vehicles as part of the second of three phases of vehicle testing, followed by phase three production starting in 2012 using improved technology and a lower price point.

Ford Transit Connect Electric:

—Type: Electric commercial vehicle

—Price: Not yet released.

—Range: 80 miles

—Expected U.S. launch date: Late 2010

—Initial launch locations: Not yet released.

—Number of launch vehicles: Not yet released.

Ford Focus Electric:

—Type: Electric vehicle

—Price: Not yet released.

—Range: 100 miles

—Expected U.S. launch date: Early 2011

—Initial launch locations: Not yet released.

—Number of launch vehicles: Not yet released.

———

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/automotive/view.bg?articleid=1277386

Con Ed Rebates Surpass Target

WNYC News

Friday, August 27, 2010

By Matthew Schuerman

Many more people than expected cashed in on the rebates Con Edison was offering for purchasing energy efficient air conditioners.

Earlier this summer, Con Ed offered $30 back to customers who bought new Energy Star window units for their homes. This wasn’t a typical marketing gimmick meant to pump up sales: Con Ed doesn’t manufacture air conditioners but it is trying to reduce energy consumption and agreed to the rebates as part of a plan required by state regulators.

Cristina Coltro, Con Ed's manager of residential conservation program, says the utility expected 7,500 customers would take part--but more than 12,000 have qualified so far.

“We believe the heat wave was a big driver for customers to go out and purchase new AC's,” she said.

The overwhleming response means that Con Ed's spending about $150,000 more than expected on the program. Coltro says the healthy response will help the utility reduce peak demand during future heat waves. The rebate ended last month.

http://beta.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2010/aug/27/con-ed-rebates-surpass-target/

Prince Charles to install solar panels on his home

CAPTION

By Kirsty Wigglesworth, AP

Prince Charles, an ardent environmentalist, has received permission from the Westminster City Council to install solar panels on the roof of his 180-year-old home in London.

Once the panels are generating electricity, Clarence House will become "carbon negative," producing more power than it uses, The Daily Telegraph reports. It became "carbon neutral" three years ago.

CAPTION

By Chris Jackson, Getty Images

The 32 panels, to be concealed by the building's parapet, are expected to produce about 4,000 kilowatts of electricity annually and cost about $46,500, to come from the prince's pocket, according to the Daily Mail.

Prince Charles, 61, has spoken of being born into his position "for a purpose" -- to tackle global warming, the story says. Last week, he told British families to take "short, refreshing" five-minute showers instead of baths to conserve water.

He's had energy-efficient boilers installed at Clarence House, where bath water is recycled to water the plants. He owns three luxury cars converted to run on biofuel, UPI reports, adding that although the Jaguar and Land Rover use biodiesel, his Aston-Martin runs on leftover wine.

New York Times

August 24, 2010

How to Get Prompt Payback From an Aging Icon That Guzzles Energy

By DARIUS DIXON of ClimateWire

NEW YORK -- Most Manhattan office buildings are designed for paper pushers, but there is a new factory running at the end of a long dim corridor on the fifth floor of the Empire State Building. Here machines are whirring, a furnace is roaring, and dozens of blue-collar workers are bustling about.

They are setting up to dismantle the building's 6,514 double-hung window frames, to reuse the glass and make them anew. It is part of one of the nation's most ambitious and symbolic energy-efficiency programs: a $20 million effort to cut the skyscraper's overall energy use by 38 percent.

Along the way, its planners hope to reduce the 79-year-old building's carbon footprint and shrink its $11 million annual utility bill. But the most ambitious part of their scheme calls for the suite of upgrades to pay for itself in just three years.

The "factory" is the outgrowth of a conversation in 2007 between Anthony Malkin, president of the New York real estate firm Malkin Holdings LLC, and Jamie Russell, who was then the director of the William J. Clinton Foundation's climate initiative. Malkin's company owns a collection of buildings across the bustling business sector of midtown Manhattan. Russell was looking for one for the foundation's new energy efficiency building retrofit program. The idea was to showcase economically feasible ways to reduce the energy use of existing buildings around the world.

Malkin suggested an older building already undergoing a $1.25 billion renovation. But Russell was thinking much bigger. He wanted a building that had been in Malkin's portfolio for less than a year, all 102 stories of it. "We knew that a building like the Empire State Building has global impact," said Arah Schuur, director of the Clinton Foundation's building retrofit program.

Before working out a plan with Malkin in early 2008, the foundation had already started several other retrofit partnerships around the world. What it needed was the publicity that was sure to come from the iconic New York landmark because the foundation had picked one of the more intractable problems in the struggle to save energy.

The energy consumed by residential and commercial buildings in the United States represents nearly 40 percent of the country's energy use and overall carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In New York City, where there are about a million buildings, the issue is particularly acute.

'Improving the largest users first'

According to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's environmental program, PlaNYC 2030, more than 75 percent of the city's total energy consumption goes into heating and electrifying its buildings. However, New York is a city not only of buildings, but also of large buildings.

Only 2 percent of the buildings in the city -- about 22,000 -- are larger than 50,000 square feet, yet this more spacious variety consumes 45 percent of the city's total energy. Giving a sense of urgency, the plan says the focus must be on "improving the largest users first."

Testifying in front of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee last month to discuss the so-called clean energy economy, Malkin said the Empire State Building consumed as much energy as 40,000 single-family homes each day. The building's peak electricity use tops out at about 9.5 megawatts.

PlaNYC also estimates that the vast majority of the buildings that currently make up New York City will still be standing in 25 years -- roughly 85 percent of them. New "green" construction cannot meaningfully address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions without addressing existing building stock.

Almost as soon as the Clinton Foundation launched its building retrofit program, Bloomberg announced his support for its goals. Part of the foundation's mission is to show hard-nosed building owners that energy efficiency is a shrewd business decision. However, part of the problem is that large buildings have multiple renters -- who often don't know their energy costs -- and landlords who normally take care of the problem by raising the rent.

"We are not motivated by 'doing the right thing,'" Malkin explained to the Joint Economic Committee. The motivation, he said, comes from "making money."

Energy efficiency and profit are not always in the same basket, at least not within a time span many businesses are willing to consider. A successful retrofit project has to have significant reductions and be able to pay back the capital costs within a reasonable time frame, notably, less than five years.

The Clinton Foundation brought in the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based energy research group, to help design the strategy for upgrading the Empire State Building. Jones Lang LaSalle manages the project, and Johnson Controls Inc. was awarded a competitive contract to oversee the project installations as well as ensure that the energy savings materialize.

Aiming high by combining low-tech methods

The team now had a major question in front of it: What could it afford to retrofit?

Throwing every "green" idea at a single building to see what sticks can quickly cripple a project financially. Accounting for the age of the building and a host of local environmental factors will determine how much insulation is needed, whether solar panels are a worthwhile investment and what kind of air-conditioning system is best.

After months of analysis, considering 66 energy-efficiency measures and combining them into different "packages" to determine which would work best in tandem, the team ultimately decided to enact a package with eight measures.

The window upgrades will both increase the building's heat retention in the winter and, through the use of a suspended film between each pane of glass, reflect heat in the summer without reducing the amount of visible light. This portion of the upgrade, however, only represents about 13 percent of the project's reduction.

Other improvements to the building include radiator insulation to prevent heat from escaping the building and an upgrade of the chiller system that runs the air conditioning. Five of the eight projects will be completed by the end of the year, representing more than 60 percent of the planned savings. However, none of the upgrades sounds particularly remarkable on its own. In fact, the "most high-tech things" in the building, Malkin said, were the wireless thermostats that improve temperature management.

"But look," he said after the JEC hearing, "it's all innovation." Malkin recalled something his grandfather once told him in the 1970s: "Hardly anything gets invented. But people combine stuff together which had never been combined, and it's in a new way, and it creates a different result."

Strategies abound; implementation is rare

Richard Leigh, director of research and advocacy for the Urban Green Council, the New York chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, said he admires the ongoing renovations at the Empire State Building. The retrofit planning strategy has been known to the academics for many years, he said. What has been missing is practical implementation.

"To change the city's energy consumption," Leigh said, "we have to go after the existing structures."

"So I think it's wonderful what they're doing with the Empire State Building," he said.

Schuur, of the Clinton Foundation's building retrofits program, said the project's value comes from the difficulty of dealing with a famous older building. "It's got all the things that people say are so hard to do."

"While I agree that New York is a very unique city," said Schuur, "a lot of the cities -- the large cities -- that we work with have similar characteristics, in that they are largely developed, and so they have an existing building stock that makes up the vast majority of buildings that will be there in 30 or 50 years."

The project has largely had its desired effect. Schuur said building owners on the opposite side of the planet have approached the foundation, interested in retrofitting their own properties. And many of them mention the Empire State Building by name.

Schuur said that she was eager to see how New York City's building efficiency laws, passed in December, will affect the "building retrofit world" (Greenwire, Dec. 10, 2009).

In New York, she said, "you've got the savviest bunch of real estate professionals in the world. It's a good place for this kind of experiment."

Schuur added, referring to the theme from the movie "New York, New York": "You know the song -- If you can do it in New York, you can do it anywhere."

Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/08/24/24climatewire-how-to-get-prompt-payback-from-an-aging-icon-52142.html?pagewanted=print

JULY 2010

David Plunkert
With Sungevity's solar panel program, Angelenos can reap the dividends of a sunny clime
“My Million Solar Roofs Plan,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said in 2006, “will provide 3,000 megawatts of additional clean energy and reduce the output of greenhouse gasses by 3 million tons...which is like taking a million cars off the road.” Thus the push was on to make California the nation’s leader in solar power.

The governor’s plan included $2.9 billion in incentives to residential and commercial owners who install solar electric systems. While developers building more than 50 single-family homes will have to offer a solar-power option to their customers beginning in 2011, buying solar continues to be cost-prohibitive for existing structures. So how can Californians reach the million-roofs goal by the proposed deadline of 2018?

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is convinced it has a solution that is win-win. For the DWP, more solar panels means a further reduction in the use of fossil fuels and an increase in renewable energy in its portfolio. For customers, there would now be an achievable alternative to traditional power, one that reduces their carbon footprint and saves them money. Add some healthy federal tax credits for individuals and private companies that enable customers to convert to solar, and you have the ingredients for a successful formula.

The X factor? Danny Kennedy, founder and president of Oakland-based Sungevity. Having had a number of jobs at Greenpeace since 1992, Kennedy’s eco-accomplishments are impressive, including working to halt new oil development in Papua New Guinea and starting California’s Clean Energy Now! campaign. He began Project Underground in 1996, helping indigenous communities fight oil and mining companies, and in 2002, he became campaign director of Greenpeace Australia and the Pacific.

However, it was Clean Energy Now! that set Kennedy’s current path. The spark for Sungevity can be traced to Kennedy and his Greenpeace team’s significant influence on the passing of San Francisco’s solar-reform propositions B and H, after which he saw an opportunity to create something unique within the burgeoning industry. “The kind of people inhabiting [solar] at that time were pioneering engineers who did not have the customer-service component,” he says.

So in 2007, Kennedy and two friends—Alec Guettel, a former deputy director at the EPA, and Andrew Birch, a former business-development manager for BP Solar—hatched a business plan to lease solar panels after using new software that enables them to view a customer’s roof remotely. Until then, solar was proffered largely through sales, which often put it outside the reach of the average consumer.

“We built the software with a company in Sydney called Extro,” Kennedy says. “The ability to combine 3-D models of buildings with the mashup of aerial and satellite photos is pretty unique. Microsoft licenses the image feeds to us, and they said they had not seen such a cool tool before!”

With financing from U.S. Bancorp, Sungevity was on its way to solving the conundrum of homeowners having to spend more to convert to solar than they would save by doing so. “Some of our timing was predicated on...an appreciation of incentives like the California Solar Initiative,” he says. “We could have started this in Europe or Australia, but we did it here because of the political setting and the can-do attitude of California entrepreneurs.”

But not everyone was on board, Kennedy says. “My partners and I had to withstand a lot of naysayers. They did not think we could do remote solar design or [online] sales because it had never been done.”

Three years and 500-plus roofs later, guess who’s having the last laugh? Jim Ulrick, a Bay Area customer, says, “I had been talking to [Sungevity] since they added the lease option. They evaluated my electric bills, then sized a system for me and said what the lease system would cost. The savings from PG&E was greater than the lease payment.”Here’s how it works: By using the imagery it gathers online, Sungevity can assess your roof’s sun exposure. This bypasses the need for someone to come out to your house. You just put your address into their system and provide a breakdown of the past year’s power bills, and within 24 hours, you have an iQuote for the leasing—a firm price.

Putting the entire quote process online, Kennedy says, makes Sungevity “the Netflix of alternative energies.” No trucks, no uniforms, no wasted fuel. Eighty or so employees in Oakland handle everything, with a few field reps in different counties to assess the maintenance for each roof. Installation and upkeep are free, and Sungevity works with existing roofing, electrical and solar contractors rather than staff their own.

While leasing is hardly revolutionary—there are other companies in L.A. who offer leases—allowing customers to get accurate pricing online is. When the lease is up, customers can opt for another five-year term. Or as technology evolves, they can upgrade.

After working on 10-year lease programs with PG&E customers up north, Sungevity is primed to take advantage of the 20-year lease agreement and substantial rebating offered by the LADWP to new solar customers who lease through a third party. The process is complex but beneficial.

You, as the homeowner, lease from Sungevity, which entitles you to both the federal tax breaks and DWP incentives. You sign over the incentives to Sungevity, which in turn, uses the captured tax credits to minimize the cost of the panels, enabling the company to lease at up to 30 percent off cost. Sungevity pulls energy from the DWP grid on shady days and puts it back on peak sunny days—with the utility’s blessing.

Customers still receive a bill from the DWP—for the “water” part of the equation and for whatever power is pulled off its grid—as well as an invoice from Sungevity. But those two combined consistently prove to be less than one’s prior charges—and you’re helping the planet.

Kennedy believes that within five years, Sungevity will be a lower-cost provider of electricity than mainstream sources. Daniel Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley, agrees. “What is so exciting about what is happening in solar today,” he says, “is that clever innovations on financing and service are now matching the innovations in the technology itself. Sungevity—along with the several other companies that can assess a home’s energy needs remotely—offers the potential for improved service and reduced cost for clean energy.”

Currently, the DWP is working on integrating renewable energies into the current grid to become a greener utility overall. Hopefully, with innovative minds like Kennedy’s, L.A. can lower its use of fossil fuels while hitting the goal of a million solar roofs. Let the sun shine.