PlaNYC, introduced to the public on Earth Day in 2007, has established some laws that building owners and property or facility managers in NYC need to be aware of.
LL84 requires annual benchmarking for energy and water for buildings, and the data must be submitted to the City EACH YEAR by May 1st.
Fines are being issued already for non-compliance with LL84! Building owners are to be fined $500 per quarter of non-compliance, beginning May 1.
Have you received this letter? http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/2010_noncomply_violation.pdf
Gather your data and submit as soon as possible to avoid continued fines! RCx is one of the Energy Efficiency service providers that can help- and we now have an easy to use online form: www.rcxbd.com/request
Also to keep on the radar, LL87 comes into play in 2013. This law requires the same list of buildings (see www.nyc.gov/ggbp) to have energy audits or retrocommissioning done by certified providers. The deadline year that each of those buildings is assigned to comply is organized by tax lot numbers. This law affects buildings every 10 years, however, having retrocommissioning or energy audits done can be a time consuming process. Also, there are some significant advantages to early compliance! There is also funding available NOW for building owners to have ASHRAE Level III Energy Audits (comply with LL87) to pay for half of the cost of the audit! There is also funding to help with any first costs when making any energy efficiency improvements.
For more updates on PlaNYC 2030 and the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, Mayor Bloomberg made an address on Earth Day 2012:
http://live.c40cities.org/blog/2012/4/25/spotlight-on-planyc-five-years-of-progress.html
Many facility managers and building owners have “run the numbers” and researched the effectiveness of energy reduction in their buildings. Not to mention, it also increases the value of an existing building, reduces risks associated with downtime, and reduces regular operating costs- which can now be viewed as controllable costs. Oftentimes, due to certain types of energy analysis and building and operations detective work, we are able to reduce current energy consumption in existing buildings by anywhere from 15 – 40%.
Well, the market realizes that there is a significant opportunity out there to make a change, but no one is educating the masses on where to start and what kinds of solutions may be applicable to your specific building and BUDGET.
Come and see us speak on this subject at the **FREE to attend** NFM&T conference in Baltimore, MD.
Room 339
Our engineers and industry experts will be presenting:
While we hope to see you in our audience as we speak at NFM&T, if your schedule is tight, we also will be available to answer any of your questions at our BOOTH #2266 at any time that the exhibit hall is open (Tues – Thurs).
If unable to make it to the Baltimore area for the show, please feel free to contact us through our website, or by email: info@rcxbd.com and we will answer your questions as soon as possible!
Do you own, live in, or operate a building in New York City that is greater than 50,000 SQ.FT?
Is your building (or condo) one of two or more that share the same tax lot and total over 100,000 SQ.FT?
If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, I hope that you’ve been doing some reading into Local Laws 84, 87, and 88!
(If you’re still not sure, check out this list: Buildings That Must Benchmark Under Local Law 84)
Most everyone has heard of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, and maybe even his 2011 update released in May:
If not, then maybe you’re doing some research because you’re one of the 30% of owners who received a letter from the Department of Buildings warning of non-compliance with the Benchmarking Law, and that penalties that will be assessed of $500 per building per quarter of non-compliance as of December 31st, 2011!
The benchmarking requirements of Local Law 84 are not overly extensive, but have been designed and organized such that building owners can either meet the requirements in-house, or hire consultants (like RCx Building Diagnostics) for a very low annual fee. The law does require that single buildings greater than 50,000 SQ.FT, or multiple buildings or condos that share tax lots and total over 100,000 SQ.FT input annual energy and water benchmarking data directly from their utility companies. This data is to be reported on a publicly available tool: EPA ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager. However, each building owner will create their own private log-in for the data input.
When creating the profile for Portfolio Manager, some general building information will be requested. Some of these categories include: building use category (office, residential, manufacturing, hospital, etc), number of occupants, operating hours, gross square footage, number of computers, etc.
Absolutely NO ONE should be charged the fee for non-compliance of this reporting. Start gathering together your energy bills for the past year, attend a free seminar given by the Urban Green Council and Department of Buildings, and either build your benchmark or hire a consultant to do so for you before December 31st!!!
Also…. if you have a building that does qualify under Local Law 84, please make yourselves aware of Local Laws 87 and 88, as they require more of an investment and will soon be coming into play beginning in 2013. (If you comply earlier than your deadline, there may be more funding available, and you will still not be required to re-comply until 10 years after your original deadline- gives you a little more time to budget and plan.)
Starting an energy management program or project can be very overwhelming when you first begin; there are many tasks to perform and it can be confusing as to where you should start. However, before you begin to tackle implementing energy saving measures or even having a more thorough Energy Audit or Retrocommissioning Project done, it is a good idea to determine if your building is a good candidate for one.
Benchmarking is a great way to quickly assess how well your building is performing relative to other, similar buildings. It is the process of comparing your building’s energy use to other buildings, while accounting for differences in size, location, use, weather differences, and other variables. Benchmarking is a relatively simple process and many energy consulting firms should offer the service at a relatively low cost.
Benchmarking will tell you if your building is a top performing building, indicating that, most likely, your building would not benefit from further analysis at this time. If benchmarking tells you that your building is a bottom performer, this indicates that there are probably opportunities for reducing energy use in your building. If you have a campus of buildings, you can also benchmark your buildings against one another to prioritize which building’s energy use you focus on first.
Once you make changes to your building, you can rebenchmark your buildings performance against what it was in the past to ensure progress towards reducing your energy consumption.
New York City and Washington DC are two of several cities that now require buildings to be benchmarked. It is vital to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to local energy reporting requirements. It is expected that more and more cities across the country will passing similar legislation to New York and DC.
Last year the Home Star Act was introduced has since become part of the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010. The purpose of the Home Star program is to create new green jobs by incentivizing energy efficiency improvements in residential buildings using rebates. The program would offer rebates for energy efficient appliances, upgrades to residential mechanical systems, insulation, and whole home energy efficiency retrofits. The $6 billion Home Star Act is currently before the senate. The issue that some have had with the act is that it only addresses energy efficiency improvements in residential buildings and does not encourage energy efficiency in commercial buildings.
Earlier this year, President Obama announced the Better Buildings Initiative, which has the overall goal of making commercial buildings 20% more energy efficient by 2020, saving businesses a total of $40 billion dollars annually. Commercial buildings were responsible for 20% of the total energy used by the U.S. economy in 2010, therefore addressing commercial building energy efficiency is vital to significantly, improving the overall energy efficiency of the country. The President plans on achieving success with the Better Buildings Initiatives through a series of strategies.
The current Energy Efficient Commercial Building Tax Deduction, which is part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, will be changed to a tax credit and will be more generous. The tax deduction allows commercial buildings to deduct between $0.30 and $1.80 per square foot based on energy efficiency upgrades implemented in the building. Additionally, real estate investment trusts (REITs) will now be able to take advantage of the tax credit. Changing the incentive from a tax deduction to a credit greatly improves the value of the tax incentive to building owners.
President Obama is also seeking to increase the number of financing opportunities available for commercial retrofits. Lack of financing opportunities has been a hurdle for some building owners. The Small Business Administration is working with lenders to take advantage of increased loan size limits to encourage new energy efficiency retrofit loans for small businesses. Additionally, the President’s Budget will introduce a new pilot program through the DOE to guarantee loans for some commercial buildings.
States and local governments typically have control over building codes, regulations, and performance standards. President Obama plants to incentivize states and localities with competitive grants, to streamline energy efficiency standards, encouraging building upgrades and attracting private sector investment.
The President is reaching out through the Better Buildings Challenge to leaders in the commercial and university sectors to make their organizations more energy efficient. Organizations that become partners in the challenge will commit to making their buildings more efficient. Partners will become eligible for benefits such as technical assistance, information on best practices being used by peers, and public recognition.
The last piece of the initiative is to train all of the workers who will be needed to perform the upgrades. The Administration is currently working on creating a Building Construction Technology Extension Partnership that would provide workforce training in areas that will be in high demand in the future, such as energy auditing.
Although the White House still has not announced the budget for the program, according to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama has said he would like to fund the program by increasing taxes for oil and natural gas companies.
The details of the Better Buildings Initiative still have to be formulated, but there are several issues to consider when determining how effective the President will be in laying the ground work for a 20% reduction in commercial building energy consumption.
The initiative provides incentives for implementing energy efficient upgrades, rather than creating penalties for not becoming energy efficient. Commercial building owners are not forced to do anything. Although owners may end up paying more over the long run as a result of higher energy bills, incentives tend to result in less action than penalties.
Additionally, projects that do not have the greatest return on investment may be prioritized over more economical projects. When it comes to energy projects, people often choose to implement the “sexy” projects that will draw attention to their sustainability efforts, such as solar panels, rather lower cost more effective measures, such as building controls. A standardized analysis should be required prior to any building applying for financing or tax incentives and project with a qualifying return on investment should be given priority.
Providing funding for or requiring Energy Audits to be performed prior to receiving any funding or tax credits would ensure that the maximum reduction in energy consumption is achieved per dollar invested in the program. Through Energy Audits, building owners would become educated on their building’s current energy use and on which potential energy efficient projects will provide them with the greatest savings. Often projects which are perceived to yield significant energy savings, do not. Additionally, this would drive the demand for Energy Auditors, which would in turn result in a larger green workforce.
Reducing the energy consumption of commercial buildings by 20% over ten years is an ambitious endeavor. Actively engaging all kinds of commercial building types is imperative to achieving the goal of the Better Buildings Initiative. The amount of funding the bill receives
Many property managers have been struggling to reduce operating costs by improving the energy efficiency in their buildings. For many owners and operators, an Energy Audit or Retrocommissioning project is the perfect starting point. However, it can be difficult to understand the difference between the two processes, and to determine the best option for your building.
An Energy Audit is meant to inform a building manager how well a building is performing from an energy consumption standpoint. The audit report includes a list of energy-saving measures one may choose to implement, including the payback and annual energy savings associated with each measure. An energy auditor will examine at least one year of energy bills to understand how the building consumes energy throughout the various seasons. Then they will use that data to benchmark the building’s energy use as compared to similar buildings in the area.
The auditor will also analyze all of the building systems in place and their operating schedules, breaking down the building’s total energy consumption by use (i.e. lighting, heating/cooling, outlet plug loads, etc). The scope of an Energy Audit can also be expanded to include a review of water use, if a building manager is interested in reducing water consumption.
The final product of an Energy Audit is a report explaining how the building is currently performing and providing a list of no cost, low-cost, and capital-cost energy conservation opportunities. Building owners that want to understand and reduce their energy consumption should invest in an Energy Audit.
The Retrocommissioning process systematically analyzes and fine-tunes an existing building’s individual systems as well as all operation and maintenance (O&M) procedures. Unlike an Energy Audit, energy reduction is not the sole goal of Retrocommissioning. The precise goals of a Retrocommissioning project can vary between projects, but can include any combination of the following: extending the life of equipment, improving comfort of a building for its occupants, improving indoor air quality, improving the effectiveness of operation and maintenance procedures (thus reducing a facility manager’s time spent on unplanned maintenance), reducing utility bills, reducing energy consumption, and reducing the number of complaints from building occupants.
The outcome of Retrocommissioning is a more comfortable and efficient building and a guide for operating and maintaining it. Candidates for Retrocommissioning include: buildings where the occupancy and use has changed since the building was constructed, buildings that have occupant comfort issues, and buildings that need to reduce energy consumption.
Both an Energy Audit and Retrocommissioning will lower a building’s operating cost and improve a property’s value. Before taking on any building performance improvement project, it is vital for a building owner or operator to outline the goals s/he hopes to achieve in order to choose the best course of action for building improvement.
Not all Energy Audits are created equal. Depending on who performs an Energy Audit and what guidelines (if any) they follow, the depth of analysis performed and audit cost will vary greatly. Many people do not understand that you can not evaluate Energy Audit vendors against one another based solely on price, there are other variables to consider that will greatly affect the value of the report you are receiving. A free Energy Audit provided by a lighting supply vendor will most likely not tell you much more than how much energy could be saved by upgrading your lighting. A Level III Energy Audit that follows the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ (ASHRAE) Procedures for Commercial Building Energy Audits will provide you with a great detail of information, but this level of analysis can be costly is unnecessary unless major renovations are planned.
What Level of Energy Audit is Needed
Ideally, prior to solicitating Energy Audit proposals, the goals for the audit should be determined. Are you looking to simply find out more information about how your building is consuming energy relative to comparable buildings? Do you already know that the energy efficiency of your building is poor and you want to lay out a energy management plan for the next 5 years? Are you planning major renovations and want to ensure that the building will greatly reduce their energy use as a result of the building upgrades? Laying out your goals will help you to write a request for proposal for an Energy Audit that will satisfy your building objectives.
There are three levels of Energy Audits that are commonly recognized. A Level I Energy Audit is often called a “Walk-through Analysis.” For this level of analysis, an auditor will evaluate historical energy use,conduct a site visit to the building, and perform a brief analysis on potential energy saving opportunities. A Level I Energy Audit report will provide a list of low-cost & no-cost energy saving opportunities along with their estimated cost and savings. A list of capital improvements that should be analyzed further will also be included. This level of audit is appropriate for buildings without a lot of capital to invest in upgrades and whose energy use has not been evaluated before.
A Level II Energy Audit requires a more thorough building site visit and energy analysis. An auditor will spend more time onsite looking at all of the building systems and discussing their operation and maintenance with the facility manager. Following the onsite visit, the auditor will begin a detailed analysis of the building energy use. Partway through the offsite analysis the auditor will meet with the building owner and operator to review all of the potential energy saving opportunities and select which ones should be fully analyzed and which are not feasible to implement. The auditor will then complete their analysis and provide a report to the building owner that includes a breakdown of the energy use in the building, a list of energy savings opportunities along with their estimated savings and cost analaysis, and a list of potential capital-intensive improvements that require further analysis.
In addition to all of the analysis work done as part of a Level II Energy Audit, a Level III Energy Audit focuses on capital intensive improvements. This additional analysis may require more thorough data collection and engineering analysis. The report for this level of audit will include everything in the Level II Report and a list of detailed capital intensive project costs and savings associated with each energy saving recommendation.
The ASHRAE guidelines list specifically what analysis should be included in all three levels on Energy Audit. Although many people refer to the ASHRAE definitions when discussing a particular level of audit, it is important that you confirm with your auditor that they are using the ASHRAE guidelines. If they are not, make sure to find out exactly what guidelines they are following or what analysis will be included in the audit. It is important to make sure that Energy Auditors are bidding on the same scope of work and that your goals for the audit are included in that scope of work.
Who Should Perform the Energy Audit?
In addition to ensuring that all auditors are bidding on the same scope of work, you will want to find out about the experience and certifications a firm has to make certain that the quality of the audit will be satisfactory. A good auditor will have certifications from reputable agencies, such as the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE), ASHRAE, or the Building Performance Institute (BPI). Good certifications are a sign of an Energy Auditors experience. Additionally you should ask for references or previously completed reports to confirm that the auditor has experience in conducting similar Energy Audits.
Many product vendors have begun to offer free or heavily discounted Energy Audits. These free audits may seem appealing, but they will most likely not analyze the overall building and will not provide you with unbiased information on what actions can be taken to reduce your building’s energy consumption
Deciding on an Auditor
When it comes down to awarding a contract, keep in mind that when it comes to an Energy Audit, you get what you pay for. You will not hear about facility managers getting a great bargin Energy Audit, but you will hear about people who did not know what to look for when signing an Energy Audit contract and in the end did not get a valueable analysis of potential energy saving opportunities. Prior to awarding any energy audit contract, make sure you will get what you want to out of the audit and a qualified person is performing the audit.
Last week, I was fortunate to attend the USGBC‘s annual Greenbuild conference in Chicago. I have attended Greenbuild for four out of the past five years and have noticed a definate change in who is attending the event and what topics are being discussed. The Greenbuild conference is no longer targeted towards engineers and architects. More people are interested and active in the green building movement than ever before.
As the green movement gains momentum, green buildings are no longer away of setting your business apart from the competition, rather having green buildings will enable you to remain competitive. Consumers are demanding green building products. Parents want green schools for their children. Businesses are willing to pay a premium for green office space. The days of green building being a niche market are long gone. As a result, people, who traditionally were not concerned with or interested in sustainable buildings, now have to remain educated in green buildings.
It seemed as though the majority of courses were not focused on how to make a building green and what the benefits of a green building compared to a traditional building are. Rather, I felt the majority of courses were focused on public policy, building codes, benchmarking, and engaging building occupants. I had not expected these kinds of courses to dominate the Greenbuild course offerings, but it does make sense. Education sessions this year included rather non traditional topics, such as “Community Colleges, Training & Rehab Centers Transforming Lives”, “Channeling Diversity into Unity: the Human Metrics of Sustainability”, and “A District Energy Policy Framework for Existing Neighborhoods.” Attendees already understood what a green building is and most people understand how to make a building more sustainable. People now are looking for ways to expand the number of green buildings and engage occupants more in green buildings. This is why more than engineers and architects are now behind the movement.
When it comes to making everyday purchases at the grocery store, it can be confusing to sort through all of the different labels that cover the packing of our products. According to a recent article by Joshua Sanders, there are more than 300 ecolabels for products and that number is growing annually. Too many product labels can cause confusion for consumers as understanding what each label means can be overwhelming. Is it more sustainable to purchase the USDA Certified Organic pasta or the Fair Trade Certified coffee? Which is the better certification to have? What is the better label to trust?
Defining a green building can be a difficult task. Many people look for a green building certification to tell them how sustainable a building is. However the availability of too many building certifications, just like too many product labels, may make it more difficult, rather than easier, for consumers to evaluate which building is more sustainable.
The United States Green Building’s (USGBC) Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) is a series of rating systems for new and existing buildings and the most recognized building certification system in the U.S. There are several different LEED rating systems, including New Construction (NC), Existing Building Operation & Maintenance (EB O&M), Homes, Core & Shell (CS), and Commercial Interiors (CI). Each rating system has different sustainability categories which contain prerequisites, which a building must meet and credits that if a building meets enough of is eligible for certification. Having different categories in the rating system, allows building owners to choose which aspects of sustainability they wish to pursue for their building. The result of this is that LEED Buildings can greatly differ in how they are sustainable relative to one another.
All of these rating systems cover the construction or major renovation of a building, with the exception of EB O&M, which looks at the ongoing performance and operation of a building. EB O&M looks at a buildings ongoing energy and water consumption, ongoing purchases, equipment in place, cleaning practices, and operation and maintenance procedures. The other rating systems look at the how sustainably a building was designed and constructed (or in the case of CI, furnished).
Like most building certification systems, energy consumption is part of the rating systems. However, LEED rating systems are not based solely on the energy efficiency of a building, rather the overall sustainability of the building is taken into account. For example, to achieve New Construction Certification, a building can not only be designed to be energy efficient; the environmental impact of the construction of the building must also be taken into account. Under the LEED rating systems, how the building impacts the building occupants is taken into account. Points are given for buildings that have high fresh air ventilation rates and that use green, non toxic cleaners.
A LEED certification is not a guarantee that a building is energy or water efficient. It is a label that says a building overall is sustainable, but it does not tell you why it is sustainable, you need to look into the credits the building earned to find out more.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Label is given to buildings that perform better than 75% of similar buildings based solely on their energy consumption. A minimum of one year’s worth of energy consumption is inputted into the Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager along with basic building information, such as number of employees, number of computers, and building age, size and location. The Portfolio Manger then compares that buildings energy consumption to similar buildings in a database. The building is then given a score between 1 and 100 which is the percentage of similar buildings the building is performing better than. A score of 60 means that a building is consuming less energy than 60% of similar buildings. In order to receive the Energy Star Label, a building must have a score of 75 or higher. A building must be re-certified every year. A current Energy Star Label is a sign that a building is energy efficient, but does not guarantee that overall the building is sustainable.
Like LEED, Green Globes is a rating system that evaluates the overall sustainability of a building. It has many of the same sustainable categories as LEED, such as energy, water, site, and indoor environment, and can also be applied to New Construction and Existing Buildings. Unlike LEED’s 100 point system, the Green Globes rating system is based on an a 1,000 credits For a building to achieve certification, it must meet a minimum of 35% of these credits. The Green Globes system awards buildings a rating of one to four globes, based on the number of credits it achieves. Green Globes Certification is only given to an entire building, unlike LEED’s CI and CS ratings. Green Globes is a sign of a overall sustainable building, but is not as widely recognized in the United States as LEED is.
Other countries have similar overall sustainable building rating systems that are as popular as LEED. In the UK, BRE Environmental Assessment Model (BREEAM) is a rating is very similar to LEED and Green Globes. In France, High Quality Evironmental (HQE) is very similar to BREEAM. In 2003, the Green Building Council of Australia created Green Star, which is also very similar to LEED.
As the building sector becomes more focused on sustainability and energy efficiency, more building certification systems and labels will likely emerge. It is important that we recognize that what these labels and certifications actually mean and that if a building is certified, it is not necessarily a guarantee that it is energy efficient or sustainable.
The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) understands that just because a property-management company offers low-income housing, the costs to provide these accommodations aren’t always “affordable.” The PHFA also realizes that the preservation of existing rental housing stock is crucial for many low income residents who do not need or have capacity for homeownership. So, in recognizing that the ongoing maintenance of healthy rental housing properties is increasingly strained by the raising costs of property operation (utilities, insurance, taxes, & other fixed costs) while tenant rates & incomes are stagnant or declining, the PHFA decided to take action. But, where would the greatest opportunity for improvement exist for the PHFA to offer assistance to help combat the issues threatening the long term financial viability of a large portion of the affordable-apartment inventory? By controlling the most controllable costs, of course… Energy! “The cost of energy is one of the most important components in affordable housing,” said Brian A. Hudson, PHFA Executive Director. “It is the deciding factor in the economic feasibility for many older properties.” Enter the Preservation through Smart Rehab Program (Smart Rehab).
Smart Rehab is a multifamily affordable rental housing preservation program that provides financing for capital improvements that result in a measurable reduction in energy consumption & utility costs. Both buildings where tenants are responsible for utility costs & buildings where the owner is responsible for utility costs are eligible to participate in the programs. The program focuses on finding & financing energy saving opportunities for a specific facility that will increase the property’s energy efficiency, reduce operating costs, and improve the comfort, safety & quality of housing for its low income residents. The Smart Rehab Program offers funding for energy efficiency improvements that are designed to be paid for by long term energy savings generated from the work.
So, how exactly does the program work? PHFA approves properties to participate in the program & requires that they have an energy audit performed by a certified auditing firm. The findings of these energy audits are used to evaluate possible energy consumption & cost saving measures. Following the review of the audit report, the property is eligible to receive grants & loans through the PHFA. Funding for the program has been provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, the PHFA, & the MacArthur Foundation Grant.
The key to the Smart Rehab program lies in identifying capital improvements & projecting annual energy cost saving through an energy audit. Energy Auditing reveals the amount of energy used in a building, & where energy is used. Understanding how energy is consumed allows an owner to focus attention toward reducing energy consumption where inefficiencies exist. Once an owner has submitted an application to the PHFA to enter into the Smart Rehab program with their facilities, the owner must obtain 3 bids for the audit services from qualified/PHFA-approved energy auditors. Owners may use project cash or Replacement Reserve to pay for the audit, & the PHFA may provide a grant for up to half of the cost. The selected certified auditor will then provide a comprehensive investment grade energy-audit of your facilities. The multi-family audit is a detailed examination of how the multifamily facility uses energy & other controllable utilities, quantification of the buildings energy and water consumption, the cost of energy, technical analysis of the building & associated systems, & in conclusion a set of recommendations to reduce the energy costs. The energy cost reduction will be categorized by building envelope, equipment (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) & operational changes.
Upon completion of the audit, the auditor will sit down with the owner to discuss the report & the list of recommended reduction opportunities. The report will then be submitted to the PHFA in order to determine which conservation measures will be funded through the Smart Rehab program. Projects with payback periods of 10 years or less will be considered, & each facility may be eligible for up to $750,000!
The PHFA is working with energy consultants to lower the utility expenses of multifamily dwellings to make sure high energy prices don’t increase rent & utility costs for fixed-income older Pennsylvanians, families of modest means, or persons with disabilities. Additionally, energy-costs are about to increase! As per PA Act 129, which is demanding that utility providers reduce their overall demand/consumption, energy rate caps are set to expire at the end of 2010. Believe it or not, current predictions call for an estimated 35% rate increase in electric generation prices when the remaining rate caps finally end throughout the state.
So, by determining the present status of energy use; actions that enhance efficiency, improve delivery, hold down costs to consumers, & keep the apartments affordable can be achieved. In fact, Smart Rehab financed capital improvements of $128,000 at “The Umbrella Works” facilities in Lancaster, PA that will save $26,800 in annual utility bills, a Return-on-Investment (ROI) of less then 5 years! Moreover, this is only one of the many examples of affordable housing property-management success-stories as a result of participation with the PHFA Preservation through Smart Rehab Program. For assistance in applying for the program or to ask questions to learn more about how you and your property can participate, contact a member of the RCx Building Diagnostics team (certified/PHFA-approved energy-auditors) or the PHFA to discuss Smart Rehab and its potential for you.
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