Cooling the Empire State Building on the
Cheap - New York Times Magazine
By EDWIN McDOWELL
April 16, 2003 - In August and September of last year, the
Empire State Building saved a total of $48,000 in air-conditioning
costs by switching between steam and electricity to supply
chilled water throughout the building's air-conditioning
system. If they had been able to use the technique earlier,
the managers of the 102-story building say, they would probably
have saved about $200,000 over the course of the summer.
Until August, the option to run the chillers using steam
as well as electricity existed, but Hani J. Salama, the
building's director of operations, said officials did not
have the sophisticated monitoring information necessary
to know when it would be cost-effective to do so.
That data was subsequently provided by ConEdison Solutions,
a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, the energy company.
The information includes frequent monitoring of energy use,
temperature, humidity and equipment performance, as well
as suggestions on when to switch from one fuel to the other.
The decision to upgrade energy management is one reflection
of the increasing sophistication of building operators and
consultants in tracking weather and energy-cost data and
taking advantage of energy deregulation to reduce expenses.
Several years ago, ConEdison Solutions had convinced Helmsley-Spear,
the Empire State Building's managers, that it could analyze
its energy needs, supply energy, improve efficiency and
lower costs by monitoring energy market fluctuations. "We
equate our role to that of a financial adviser," said
Jorge Lopez, vice president for retail commodity services
at ConEdison Solutions. "We acquire information, analyze
it and develop a set of solutions."
One recommendation was that the Empire State Building alternate
using steam and electricity so that depending on temperature,
time of day and the price difference between the two sources
of energy, the building's operators could switch from one
to the other.
"Before energy was deregulated, users basically had
to pay a flat rate," said William K. Stoddard, vice
president for projects and engineering buildings at the
Rockefeller Group, which operates four buildings in Manhattan,
including the Time & Life Building.
To forestall the risks of running short of energy, two
of the Rockefeller Group buildings have steam and electricity.
The other two, including the Time & Life Building, run
chilled water through a heat exchanger that cools the water
by extracting the heat into the cooling-tower water system,
Mr. Stoddard explained.
When a new refrigeration plant was put into the Time &
Life Building several years ago, natural gas was also added,
Mr. Stoddard said, noting that such flexibility would not
have been possible before deregulation. With these techniques,
the company estimates that it saves $1 million a year on
energy costs at the building.
Grubb & Ellis, which manages 32 buildings in New York,
found that it could cut costs by searching widely for energy
suppliers. Last spring, after its energy supply company
quoted a rate of 12 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity
in 17 buildings with a combined eight million square feet
of office space, Grubb & Ellis consulted World Energy
Solutions, a broker in Worcester, Mass., and asked it to
run an auction among energy suppliers.
"World Energy Solutions went to five different energy
suppliers that wanted to bid," said John Poblocki,
regional senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis, adding
that when his firm put the contract up for bid, it mentioned
that its annual energy cost for the 17 buildings averaged
$33 million.
The opening quotes were 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, Mr. Poblocki
said, but by the time the auction was over, the low bid
was 9.17 cents a kilowatt-hour for 18 months. Select Energy
won the bid to supply electricity to 12 of the buildings
during that time, and ConEdison Solutions outbid the others
for the right to supply the five others.
Energy deregulation, despite its many admirers, does not
lack for critics. Vincent A. Fantauzzi, the president of
the 825-member Building Owners and Managers Association
in New York, said the concept of deregulation was flawed
because there is not enough supply to meet demand, leaving
the option of reduced consumption.
And reduced consumption is what the Empire State Building's
chillers and the Time & Life Building's refrigeration
plant are for — to produce air-conditioning during
off-peak hours using steam.
In addition, Mr. Stoddard of the Rockefeller Group is thinking
of replacing a building's aged refrigeration system with
a system that will make ice at night, when electricity rates
are cheaper. The melted ice would then be used, as it is
in other buildings, for air-conditioning during the day,
when electricity rates are high.
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