When you are spending upwards of half a billion dollars on a retrofit, sustainability measures should be incorporated.
New York City's iconic Empire State Building has identified eight key projects that run the gamut from a chiller plant retrofit to tenant energy management. Combined, these eight measures should realize energy savings approaching 40 percent over the life of the project.
The forty percent savings are almost double the typical energy retrofit savings of 10-20 percent. Annual energy cost savings from the project are estimated to be in excess of $4 million.
One of the key measures involve the ESB's windows. All 6514 windows (go ahead, count them) on the 102 story landmark are to be made energy efficient. Each window will be removed, cleaned and reused with a low emissivity film applied before being reinstalled.
Air handling units at the ESB will be retrofitted with variable speed fan units on an as needed basis. When replaced, the two new variable units will improve on the performance, and replace, the historical four air handling units that now occupy each floor. At 2.8 million square feet the air handling units have a lot of air to circulate at the ESB.
Along with the energy and cost savings are the ancillary benefits. It is expected that 105 000 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved over the next 15 years.
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When the work is completed the ESB will be in the top 10 percent of similar energy efficient buildings. This gives the team reason to believe that they can pursue LEED certfication at the gold level.
LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - is a rating system for green buildings. The system has four distinct levels that begin with; certified, silver and gold levels. The most efficient building under LEED criteria is the platinum level.
Project partners are hopeful that the savings at the Empire State Building will be replicated in other large properties and act as a catalyst for many more energy retrofits in New York City and elsewhere.
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