MENU

Party Walls

Moderate Rehabs in Pre-War Buildings: Practical Limits to Hydronic Building Energy Savings

New York City has established high goals for CO2 reductions as part of the 80 x 50 plan enacted under Mayor de Blasio’s administration. In short, NYC aims to reduce its CO2 production by at least 80% by 2050 (from a 2005 baseline). This requires vast energy conservation and renewable energy production proliferation across the city’s energy, transportation, waste management, and building sectors. Buildings themselves account for 68% of current CO2 production in the City, and as such have the largest reduction targets1. Goals can only be met by implementing repeatable and scalable scopes of work in coordination with policy updates and improvements in other energy sectors. To better understand the efficacy of these moderate improvements on overall energy consumption, we’ve analyzed the results from a recent portfolio rehabilitation. These findings help us to create a map of where we need to go in order to approach 80 X 50.

Figure 1: 80 x 50 NYC Buildings CO2 Reduction Goals, NYC Mayors Office of Sustainability, Roadmap to 80 x 50 Report

(more…)