Heat gone, but energy concerns still linger

Real Estate Weekly, August 22, 2001 by Natalie Keith

As the city continues to cope with the summer heat, office building owners and managers are among those trying to conserve energy and avoid the type of power outages being experienced by California and other locations.

Following daily alerts from Consolidated Edison on Aug. 7-10, the Real Estate Board of New York notified members participating in a voluntary energy conservation program urging them to:

* reduce elevator service by 25 to 30 percent

* increase the set point on chilled water by a few degrees

* dim mail floor lobby lighting

* shut down non-critical equipment such as restroom fans and general exhaust fans

REBNY members who participate in the program control over 300 million SF of office space, according to the board.

"Our industry's cooperation and the work of the New York City Partnership were essential to sustaining New York's reputation for power reliability -- a key business concern -- during one of the hottest summer weeks in years," said REBNY president Steven Spinola. "Careful preparation and a joint effort by property managers and tenants spared us the kind of power outages that would have hindered commerce and caused New Yorkers even more inconvenience and discomfort than this awful heat wave imposed."

The temperature hit a record-breaking 103 degrees on Aug. 9, which was followed by another 97-degree day. So far this month, there have been 8 days when the temperature went above 90 degrees and, as of Aug. 12, the average temperature in Central Park this month has been 89 degrees, or 5 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service.

Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. reached a record level of electricity delivery for a one-week period as 1,567,147 megawatt hours of electricity were used by its 3.1 million customers from Aug. 6-12. This period also included the highest-ever hourly peak demand, 12,207 megawatts, reached at 3 p.m. Aug. 9. The Con Edison system delivers energy to an estimated 8.9 million New York City and Westchester County residents and also serves more than 400,000 commercial customers.

Despite the heat, the region was able to avoid large problems, although sporadic power outages did occur Aug. 9 in Connecticut and northern New Jersey. The overseer of New York State's electrical grid said that enough power would be available to meet the demands of commercial buildings. Yet feeder cables in Brooklyn overheated last Tuesday, cutting power to 4,000 customers. Close to 6,000 people in Hoboken also lost power after a substation failed.

"In the face of six straight days of temperatures over 90 degrees, our system performed extremely well and our employees more than met the challenge. When we asked our customers to conserve power to help us through the most difficult periods they responded and we thank them for their help," said Kevin Burke, president of Con Edison.

Despite the cooler temperatures experienced last week, office building owners should not abandon conservation measures. Along with the emergency measures urged during the heat wave, REBNY advised its members to take "base building" energy conservation measures. Recommendations have included installing motion detectors in stairwells and restrooms, raising thermostats by two degrees, activating the Energy Star management feature on computers, isolating vacant floors with isolation dampers or other means, using steam for chillers when possible, topping off emergency fuel tanks and performing full-load testing on generators.

Property management firms not yet enrolled on REBNY's e-mailing list for energy conservation notices can do so by e-mailing mdavenport@rebny.com or lrainey@rebny.com.