New York City’s latest energy-efficiency law has building owners going retro. As in retro-commissioning. Local Law 87/09, part of the city’s Greener, Greater Building Plan, goes into effect this year. The law requires owners of properties 50,000 square feet or larger to have an energy audit conducted on their buildings every 10 years followed by retro-commissioning measures to improve operating efficiency. Retro-commissioning entails fine-tuning and maintaining energy-related systems, such as adjusting lighting levels and domestic water temperatures and identifying and repairing HVAC leaks. After areas of energy loss are identified in the audit and corrected through retro-commissioning, building owners then file an Energy Efficiency Report (EER) with the city. For buildings with block numbers ending in 3, the energy reports must be filed by December 31 of this year. Owners of buildings with block numbers ending in 4 must file by December 31, 2014, and so on, until 2022. The audit, retro-commissioning, and EER process can take up to a year to complete, so property owners and managers who have to file by the end of the year should get started ASAP. Buildings can begin the audit and retro-commissioning up to four years before their filing deadline to allow owners enough time to complete the entire process and accumulate capital reserves. So if your property ends with block numbers in 4, 5, 6, or 7, you can get the ball rolling as well. (See our Ask the Engineer column for details on complying with Local Law 87/09.) As our latest ad (above) in Habitat magazine points out, retro is the wave of the future. And for owners and managers who want to start reaping the benefits of a more energy-efficient building, the future is now.
