Browsing by Subject "Residential energy efficiency"
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Item Open Access NYC Co-op and Condominium Board Guide to Energy Efficiency Upgrades in Buildings(2012-04-27) Smedick, David; Symonds, Jason; Smykal, Allison; Opp, Thomas; Jia, YuanThe purpose of this project is to help Better Buildings New York (BBNY), a non-profit organization focused on increasing energy efficiency and decreasing energy bills of NYC buildings, educate multifamily co-op and condo boards on energy efficiency upgrades and retrofits available for their buildings. The current market for these technologies and opportunities is vast, and at times, overwhelming. Various energy efficiency technologies exist with different costs, energy savings and impacts. Therefore, there was a need to create a medium for which these technologies and benefits could be communicated in a quick, non-technical, and easily understood manner. BBNY’s audience for this project is co-op and condo boards in multifamily apartment buildings. In these types of buildings, they are the decision-makers who are responsible for making renovation/retrofit choices. Therefore, this project focuses around the myriad of energy efficient technologies that are applicable to multifamily building environments, and how to convey this information to this type of audience. The research team used literature review, NYC building data sets, and Department of Energy modeling software (eQUEST) to vet a list of technologies BBNY was interested in presenting to board members. Each technology was researched to find information relating to five areas: capital costs, energy efficiency gains, payback periods, consistency of payback periods, and difficulty of installation. Once this information was collected, the team decided that there would be two main deliverables for the client. The first deliverable is a full academic report that delves into the intricate methodology and technical analysis used to evaluate each technology. This report serves as a reference for understanding the various types of technologies available for multifamily retrofits, and a breakdown of their functionality. However, due to the background of the intended audience, the team wanted to create a way for the technologies to be easily understood and compared to one another. Therefore, a second deliverable was developed with a ranking system to rate each of the technologies within the five previously defined areas. The ranking score used quantitative and qualitative information from the original research, and provided a way to compare the technologies against each other. The first part of the second deliverable is a condensed brochure that takes each technology and evaluates it on a single page, with a chart displaying the ranking score it received when compared to the whole list of technologies covered. The second part of the second deliverable is an MS Excel tool that offers a dynamic ranking system to provide a personalized list of technologies related to building attributes and user preference. From these two deliverables, BBNY has the means to provide co-op and condo boards with guidance on energy efficient, retrofit technologies. The decision-makers in thousands of multifamily buildings now have a starting point to learn what technologies may be appropriate for further investigation. It is through these types of grassroots, information campaigns that energy efficiency gains and carbon footprint reductions in multifamily buildings can become a reality in New York City.Item Open Access REDUCING ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN PUBLIC HOUSING: AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF BOULDER HOUSING PARTNERS’ FY 2010 ENERGY PERFORMANCE CONTRACT AND ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS TO ENGAGE RESIDENTS IN CONSERVATION(2013-04-18) Dimmitt, RachelIn an attempt to further its goals of environmental stewardship, Boulder Housing Partners, the public housing authority for Boulder, CO, has made a public commitment to reduce the electricity consumption of its public housing portfolio enough to attain net-zero electricity consumption, or have all consumption offset by the on-site generation of renewable power. Furthermore, Boulder Housing Partners strives to surpass the City of Boulder’s stringent energy efficiency standards, which far exceed state and federal efficiency requirements for rental housing. As a result, Boulder Housing Partners recently decided to invest heavily in energy efficiency measures via an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) executed by Johnson Controls, Inc. in fiscal year (FY) 2010. Initial results suggest that properties in the treatment group— those which received the EPC work—experienced an overall decline in electricity consumption. Average monthly electricity consumption for the treatment group declined by 17.44% from FY 2009 to FY 2011, while average monthly electricity consumption increased by 7.96% for the control group. However, a series of simple t-tests suggests the absence of any statistically significant change. This is confirmed by a difference-in-difference analysis. The EPC had an effect on the treatment group to the magnitude of -2701.865 kWh per month and was not statistically significant. In order to verify that outliers in the treatment group did not substantially affect these results, the difference-in-difference analysis was repeated after dropping the outliers from the dataset. This resulted in an increase in the effect of the EPC on the treatment group to -4284.125 kWh per month and an increase in statistical significance from 0.88 to 0.122. Although this is a substantial change, 0.122 remains well past the standard 0.05 threshold for statistical significance. Consequently, it does not change the conclusions or interpretation of the results. In order to further organization progress toward the net-zero electricity consumption goal, it is recommended that BHP pursue a combination of the installation of sub-meters, the provision of monthly notice to residents detailing their previous month's usage and performance compared to other property residents, the institution of a monthly or annual savings sharing program, and solicitation of written commitments to achieving conservation goals from residents. If the organization so chose and resources permitted, they also could pursue information sessions and the dissemination of written materials. The recommended incentive- and information-based interventions, as well as additional building upgrades, should allow Boulder Housing Partners to capture substantive additional increases in energy savings, while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.