Empire State Building Exceeds Guaranteed Energy Savings
NEW YORK — The energy efficiency program at the Empire State Building has exceeded guaranteed energy savings for the second year in a row, saving $2.3 million and providing a model for building retrofits nationwide.
In 2011, the Empire State Building exceeded its year one energy-efficiency guarantee by 5 percent, saving $2.4 million, and in the second year, the property beat its energy-efficiency guarantee by about 4 percent.
The building owners, President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched the Empire State Building retrofit in 2009 to reduce costs, increase real estate value and protect the environment. Anthony Malkin of the Empire State Building and the Clinton Climate Initiative Cities program, a partner of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, created a coalition of eco-conscious organizations to create the energy efficiency program implemented at the building. The team was comprised of the Empire State Building, Milwaukee-headquartered Johnson Controls, Chicago-headquartered Jones Lang LaSalle and Snowmass, Colo.-based Rocky Mountain Institute.
The core base building energy-efficiency retrofit of the Empire State Building is complete, with other projects to be completed as new tenants build out green office spaces. Once all of the tenant spaces are retrofitted, the building is estimated to save $4.4 million a year and create an energy use reduction of at least 38 percent, which will cut carbon emissions by 105,000 metric tons over the next 15 years.
The retrofit project involved eight improvement measures that addressed core building infrastructure, common spaces and tenant suites. Johnson Controls and Jones Lang LaSalle performed improvements that included the refurbishment of all 6,514 windows, installation of insulation behind radiators, a chiller plant retrofit, new building management systems controls, new revenue-grade meters serving the entire building and a web-based tenant energy management system.
New tenants, such as LinkedIn, Skanska, LF USA, Coty Inc., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Shutterstock, already moved in during the past two years. These tenants wanted to find a space that reflected their sustainability values and allow them to monitor and control their energy use. Skanska, for instance, built a 24,000-square-foot headquarter space to LEED Platinum standards.
Because of the Empire State Building’s positive results, Johnson Controls and Jones Lang LaSalle implemented energy retrofit model in other buildings across the United States. The two companies jointly launched the program at all 13 properties in Malkin’s New York metropolitan-area commercial portfolio, as well as One Worldwide Plaza in New York. Johnson Controls used the same model at 44 commercial buildings, including The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Jones Lang LaSalle has implemented it in 25 other properties, such as The Moscone Center in San Francisco and Chicago Union Station.