The Project at a Glance

In 2013, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)—a New York state authority that promotes energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources to reduce customer energy bills—decided to lease office space at 1359 Broadway in Manhattan. With NY Green Bank, a division of NYSERDA, it now occupies 15,200 square feet on the building’s 19th floor. The nearly 471,000-square-foot building at 1359 Broadway had recently undergone significant upgrades, the addition of state-of-the-art HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and security systems. The space offered the tenant the opportunity to build out a cost-effective, high-performance space, in line with NYSERDA’s organizational mission, that could support many mechanical design best practices for comfort and efficiency.

In designing and constructing its space on floor 19, NYSERDA chose to follow the Tenant Energy Optimization process—a proven, replicable approach that integrates energy efficiency into tenant space design and construction and delivers excellent financial returns through energy conservation.

Executing the Process

Design and Construction

NYSERDA was familiar with the Tenant Energy Optimization process and had working relationships with several of its original developers. NYSERDA assembled a team of experts, many of whom had been involved in a whole-building retrofit of the Empire State Building, to plan and execute the Tenant Energy Optimization process.

NYSERDA’s space provided an opportunity to showcase market-based best practices and replicable cost-effective, energy-efficient tenant space solutions. The team outlined three general targets to help guide the design process:

• Given NYSERDA’s mission to promote and advance energy efficiency and clean energy throughout the state, the buildout should set the standard for a cost-effective, high-performance workplace.
• The project should create a more vibrant, productive work environment for NYSERDA/NY Green Bank staff, leading to lower absenteeism and enhanced staff attraction, retention, and productivity.
• The project should inform revisions to enhance NYSERDA’s incentive program for the commercial office tenant buildout market.

More specific project goals for the buildout included the following:

• The project should serve as a model for responsible, economically minded tenants and incorporate commercially available, off-the-shelf solutions rather than cutting-edge or demonstration technologies.
• The project should reflect reasonable cost-effectiveness, i.e., a payback of full incremental cost within five years.
• The project should meet at least LEED for Commercial Interiors Silver requirements.

After the team conducted energy performance modeling, reviewed incremental costing information, and analyzed cost savings projections, a package of energy performance measures (EPMs) was chosen that would meet the energy and financial goals of the authority. EPMs are technologies and systems that aim to reduce energy use through efficiency and conservation. They are also frequently referred to as energy conservation measures (ECMs).

The EPMs implemented in NYSERDA’s space on floor 19 include the following:

Measurement and Verification

After completion of the buildout, the design engineer returned to perform measurement and verification (M&V) to ensure that the implemented EPMs were performing as intended. Initial M&V was conducted over the course of a ten-day period, once the space was fully occupied and operational. The design engineer collected actual tenant energy consumption data from the installed submeters. With the exception of the computer shutoff software, M&V confirmed that all EPMs were implemented and performing as designed. In fact, peak lighting power measured at 0.61 watt per square foot—almost 15% better than the 0.7 watt per square foot that was originally estimated. The energy consultant believed that the computer shutoff software simply had not been turned on or connected to the appropriate plug loads and recommended that NYSERDA confirm that it was connected and programmed to turn off those plug loads overnight and on the weekends.

Post-Project Actions

NYSERDA’s experience with the Tenant Energy Optimization process helped inform its Commercial Tenant Program, which was developed to incentivize the design of high-performance tenant spaces.

The program offers cost sharing ranging from 50% to 100% of eligible expenses to buy down the cost of developing an energy model and energy efficiency package to encourage use of energy-efficient design elements in a tenant space.

Providing this type of targeted technical assistance at the onset of a project—during lease negotiations, lease renewal, or at the beginning of a major renovation—helps facilitate the conversation among tenants, landlords, architects, and engineers about building energy-efficient spaces that can provide energy- and cost-savings benefits to tenants and landlords alike. The Commercial Tenant Program is open and accepting applications.