Benchmarking New York City's Municipal Building Portfolio
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 INTRODUCTION 2 ROLE OF BENCHMARKING IN CARBON REDUCTION STRATEGY 5 NYC GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS VS. NATIONAL AVERAGE 8 RESULTS BY BUILDING TYPE 12 RESULTS BY OPERATING AGENCY 21 CONCLUSION 22 TABLES AND FIGURES INDEX 23 APPENDICES 24 Executive Summary Benchmarking Effort Overview In 2009, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, a landmark legislation package that enacted a set of energy efficiency requirements for existing buildings in New York City. Local Law 84 requires facility owners of public buildings over 10,000 square feet and private buildings over 50,000 square feet to benchmark their energy use each year. Since 2009 the City has benchmarked 2,730 buildings including libraries, police stations, firehouses, schools, courthouses, health, community, and family centers, and government offices. The City performed this benchmarking using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool which is widely accepted as the industry standard for benchmarking. For eligible facilities Portfolio Manager rates energy performance on a scale of 1–100 enabling building managers to see how their facilities are performing relative to similar buildings nationwide. This report highlights the Portfolio Manager benchmarking results for libraries, fire stations, police stations, warehouses, medical offices, K-12 schools, courthouses and office buildings. These building types represent a variety of City departments’ facilities and provide a representative sample of municipal buildings. Collectively, these eight types make up more than 75% of the City’s building portfolio. Role of Benchmarking in Carbon Reduction Strategy This report provides the most comprehensive benchmark information possible on New York City government buildings which are 10,000 square feet or larger. Although NYC government buildings of this size are, on average, performing near the national average, there is still much work to be done to achieve the City’s greenhouse gas reduction goal of 30% by 2017 below fiscal year 2006 levels. While benchmarking is an important tool, it is just one part of the City’s overall approach to achieving this goal. NYC government’s carbon reduction implementation strategy is based on an integrated, data-driven approach. The City uses benchmark scores and other data to prioritize energy audits, retrofits, improved operations and maintenance, and retro-commissioning activities. Benchmark Scores New York City K-12 schools, courthouses, medical offices, warehouses, and offices performed near national averages. The 1,162 public schools had an average benchmark score of 53, slightly better than the national average for K-12 schools. Both medical offices and warehouses showed somewhat poorer performance than the national average each with an average benchmark score of 43. Courthouses and City offices had average benchmark scores of 54 of 59 respectively, which indicates that they performed slightly better than similar buildings nationwide. Non-Ratable Building Energy Use Intensity Results Non-ratable buildings are included in facility categories that are not currently eligible for receiving benchmark scores using Portfolio Manager. The City’s 108 libraries’ average energy use intensity (EUI) 1 was 22% better than the national average. Its fire and police stations showed poor average results at 18% and 8% worse than the national average respectively. For facilities with significant variance from the national average such as police and fire stations, the City has undertaken several data quality improvement efforts. These efforts will determine if the poor benchmark results might indicate a data quality problem; whether the national averages include facilities like firehouses with volunteer fire departments which might bias the results; or if there are actions that the City can take to remedy these buildings’ poor energy performance. Introduction New York City Benchmarking Efforts In 2009, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, a landmark legislation package that enacted a set of energy efficiency requirements for existing buildings in New York City. One component of the Plan is Local Law 84, which requires facility owners of public buildings over 10,000 square feet and private buildings over 50,000 square feet to benchmark their energy use each year. Since 2009 the City has benchmarked 2,730 buildings including libraries, police stations, firehouses, schools, courthouses, health, community, family centers, and government offices. The Division of Energy Management at the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS Energy Management) manages the energy accounts and conservation initiatives for City government operations including benchmarking reporting. DCAS Energy Management is responsible for achieving the PlaNYC goal to reduce City greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 30% by 2017. PlaNYC is the City’s blueprint for climate action. DCAS is implementing an integrated, data-driven GHG reduction strategy for buildings that includes energy audits, retrofits, improved operations and maintenance, retro-commissioning and ongoing data analysis. Benchmarking building energy performance supports this effort by helping the City target the best opportunities for GHG reductions in City-owned and - operated buildings, track energy efficiency progress over time, and provide important feedback to agencies’ planning teams, budget groups, and facility staff. DCAS performed its energy benchmarking using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool, which is widely accepted as the industry standard for benchmarking buildings. For eligible facilities Portfolio Manager rates energy performance on a scale of 1–100 enabling building managers to see how their facilities are performing relative to similar buildings nationwide. To calculate ratings Portfolio Manager uses information on electricity, natural gas, steam, and fuel oil consumption and adjusts for other factors, including building type, gross square footage, year of construction, weather, and operational data like operating hours and number of staff. Buildings that are not eligible for benchmarking scores still receive useful tracking information such as Energy Utilization Index (EUI), or energy use intensity, and GHG emissions figures. 2 Information Sources and Data Quality Improvements Benchmarking City buildings with Portfolio Manager required several data sources. First, energy use data was collected from the Energy Cost Control and Conservation (EC3) system, a customized online system that stores energy billing information and creates agency energy cost and usage reports. For building attribute information, DCAS worked with City agencies to verify and update existing datasets. Building management teams at 28 agencies signed off on all building data used for benchmarking. DCAS is currently working to make sure that the benchmarking data is as accurate as possible by addressing the following issues: Campuses. Some groups of buildings were benchmarked as one structure due to a lack of sub- metering. The City is working to sub-meter these facilities and plans to benchmark each building individually in the future. Mixed-Use Buildings. A building’s use category is an important variable when determining Portfolio Manager benchmarking scores. The City operates some buildings that fall into more than one ratable space category. For example, several facilities contain both office and courthouse spaces. Portfolio Manager allows users to enter separate space types into the system for each individual building; however, for this report, mixed-use buildings were entered into Portfolio Manager as only one of the space types. In some cases, this approach could skew benchmark results. DCAS is now working to include separate spaces in Portfolio Manager for mixed-use buildings. Heating Fuel Oil Data. Heating fuel oil is the City’s only energy source that is not purchased and tracked centrally at DCAS. When the City launched the benchmarking initiative, fuel oil contracts did not require that vendors provide usable delivery data. As such, DCAS was only able to acquire fuel oil data from three vendors. Moving forward, DCAS’s contracting office is now requiring City vendors to provide delivery data. DCAS will process and upload the remaining fuel oil information as it becomes available. Energy Meter Associations. DCAS is currently working with agency energy teams to improve the associations between utility meters and buildings to ensure that all linkages are accurate. Utility Data Analysis Before benchmarking scores provided more nuanced performance rankings, DCAS used energy usage and cost information to monitor and evaluate the energy efficiency of City buildings. For example, in the past the City used electricity bill data to select buildings for lighting efficiency projects. Energy reports from utility bills help the City track costs, monitor usage over time, and provide a key indicator for the City’s GHG emissions tracking. In recent years, DCAS has worked to enhance utility reports and transition from an older mainframe system to a more integrated and flexible web-based database and reporting system. EC3, launched in 2010, allows users to monitor utility-billed energy costs and usage on the account, agency, and Citywide levels. EC3 provides graphic, user-friendly energy consumption indicator reports and supports data needs for benchmarking