Greening an Icon: The Empire State Building
“We looked at the building as a system rather than a series of components,” Quartararo says. “So instead we made changes on the envelope.”
On the envelope, the team took a thermal image and found that windows constitute the biggest gateway for energy-sucking heat loss and gain. Bur rather than order 6,500 new windows fabricated, pre-assembled, and shipped from elsewhere in the country, the team is refurbishing the windows already in place, using existing glass and sashes, creating triple-glazed panels with an additional reflective membrane, and they’re performing the work right inside the building. The process was set up in such a way that no window will go missing for more than three minutes, according to Rode. Further analysis of the thermal images presented another inexpensive solution – reflective insulation barriers installed behind radiators would further reduce heat loss.
The new LEED offices are being outfitted with occupancy sensors and automatic controls to cut down on artificial lighting needs. In addition, each of the new tenant spaces has a panel that shows energy use across the building, in real time, to allow individual tenants to learn from each other, and the energy services company Johnson Controls is on hand for active management of even further reductions.
“I see programs that tell people how much they’re using, but not how to change that,” Rode says. “We will have a guy walking through the building at least once a month and one of his tasks will be compiling a list of suggestions for the tenants.”
Air handler units are being replaced with variable-frequency drive fans for better efficiency and more tenant control. Occupied spaces will have demand-control ventilation and air quality monitoring, and the whole building will get an upgrade of existing building controls for better HVAC performance, with the addition of metering.
“It was challenging exploring ides that might not be implemented, looking at the ideas on the edges of the bell curve, not the middle of the road,” says Carol Fluhrer, RMI’s energy consultant. “And it’s never been done on such scales. It was challenging to not be creative.”
The rest of the process has everything to do with the collaboration.
“You’ll notice the technologies are very mundane, but the process we used to arrive at that was somewhat unique,” Rode says. “I’m a Manhattan College grad and I’m working with a team of PhDs. It was a great experience, but we had to pay a lot of attention to not stifle the spirit of innovation.”
The PartnersJohnson Controls: A 125- year-old company with more than 140,000 employees that currently focus on technology integration services and energy products, serving more than 200 million vehicles, 1 million commercial buildings, and 12 million homes across 125 countries. Their building efficiency business includes building management systems, integrated HVAC systems, and energy and sustainability solutions.
Jones Lang LaSalle: A real estate facility management company with a portfolio of 1.4 billion sq ft, $46 billion of assets under management, with a 2008 revenue of $2.7 billion and more than 750 clients in 60 countries. Its core services include leasing, investment and property management, and energy and sustainability services. It counts 380 LEED-accredited professionals on its staff and has 116 LEED projects worldwide. In the United States, that totals 35 million sq ft.
The Rocky Mountain Institute: The “special sauce,” as LaSalle’s Qaurtararo describes them, is a non-profit started in 1982 by experimental physicist and prolific author, Amory Lovins, to focus on energy policy. Now counting a staff of 80 and a $12 million annual budget, RMI has led the redesign of $30 billion worth of facilities and consulted 19 heads of state on energy and resource efficiency.
