Towers in Manhattan are getting power from heat through the installation of gas-powered cogeneration plants, which are being added to many buildings’ roofs and parking garages. Improved efficiency combined with government incentives and rising electricity costs have made installing cogeneration plants and generating their own power cost-effective for landlords, who are looking to save money in the long term.
From The New York Times:
The appeal is simple: cogens help landlords lower energy costs. “You start to see savings on monthly bills right away,” said Clark Wieman, Cooper Union’s planning director. He said that the new generator would cost eight cents a kilowatt-hour, roughly half the cost of buying electricity from Con Ed.
For landlords, the assurance of on-site power also provides added comfort. “Backup power is another amenity we offer to our tenants,” said David R. Greenbaum, president of Vornado’s New York office division.
Cogens are also considered greener, because they lighten the demand on Con Ed’s older, dirtier plants and generate as-needed energy on location. Electricity weakens as it travels along transmission lines. Indeed, only 40 percent of each volt that Con Ed generates reaches the customer, according to Thomas W. Smith, the chief executive at Endurant Energy, the consulting firm managing the One Penn Plaza installation. The remainder dissipates into the grid as heat and carbon emissions.
The cogen at One Penn Plaza, the black skyscraper next to Madison Square Garden, is expected to attain efficiency levels as high as 80 percent, according to Smith. That’ll translate to about 2,800 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions that are offset each year. And that’s just from one building – the more skyscrapers install cogeneration plants, the more greenhouse gas emissions will be cut.
The upfront cost will keep this idea from spreading too far and wide – One Penn Plaza’s cogen cost $18 million. So, only big developers will be able to afford to make the change. Still, it’s encouraging to hear that big cities are getting smarter about energy.
Link [The New York Times]
