Alphabet Energy Ratings: ‘A’ for Effort – But Needs Work

On January 8th, 1632-A, which amends the NYC administrative code, was signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The NYC press office release described 1632-A with a terse “relates to energy efficiency scores”. Were it that simple.

This law requires buildings over 25,000 square feet – those included in Local Law 84 which covers benchmarking – to conspicuously post their energy efficiency score as letter grades near public entrances. The scores will be based on Energy Star ratings.

In a few years, NYC buildings will be posting a rating of A-F, similar to food establishment health codes, for all to see and judge. But rather than cleanliness, freshness and vermin control, the building ratings will be based on energy usage. And therein lies the rub…..at least according to The New York Post’s smart and savvy real estate columnist Lois Weiss.

While many publications simply published a basic 1632-A description, Weiss reported that Energy Star ratings are based on 1 to 100 and NYC building scores will be based on the alphabet, resulting in imperfect groupings that fail to take into account energy usage by different buildings and occupants (such as data centers and trading floors that are hugely intensive energy users).

The New York Times published an Op-Ed last June opining that while Local Law 84 requires scoring buildings on their energy efficiency “no one sees the data” and that “ratings are posted on a government website that few people know about and are charted on a 100-point scale that is difficult to interpret.”

Thus, we have Weiss writing about flaws in the new legislation, while the executive director of the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land use at NYU Law School, Danielle Spiegel-Feld, is decidedly in favor of the simplified A-F rating system according to her Op-Ed.

Spiegel-Feld believes easier to understand and more transparent energy performance ratings will “increase demand for high scoring properties and encourage investments and upgrades in others”.

Weiss on the other hand, predicts that with the imperfect groupings in the letter rating system, “the energy-efficient retrofitted Empire State Building will score a B, while the LEED Platinum One Bryant Park, which uses lots of energy, will have a C.”

The New York Post, standing by its columnist, ran its own opinion editorial calling 1632-A the “dumb way to go green” and that “any building that uses less power does better, so a warehouse is guaranteed to score better than a residential or office building.”

The good news is that we have time to work out the details as letter energy ratings will not be required to be displayed until 2020.

As we said up front: 1632-A gets an “A” for effort but needs improvement.

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Steven_J._SchleiderBy Steven J. Schleider, MAI, LEED-AP BD + C President, Metropolitan Valuation Services

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Los Angeles Premieres New Street Sealant. Cool!

In the never ending quest for sustainability, Los Angeles is experimenting with sealing their hottest streets with a new asphalt coating created to increase solar reflectivity and, thereby, lower street temperatures.

Los Angeles, like New York City, suffers from the Urban Heat Island Effect, wherein densely populated and built environments are as much as 20 degrees hotter than outlying areas. According to the U.S. EPA, “Heat islands can affect communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, heat-related illness and mortality, and water quality.”

Can a coolant seal reverse that effect? According to the Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles is betting big – about $40,000 per mile – that it can. (Typical sealants run significantly less in cost.)The City recently applied its first coating of CoolSeal, which is light gray, in the hottest area in the San Fernando Valley, Canoga Park, on streets lined with two-story apartment buildings. Plans are to duplicate the experiment in 14 other council districts.

Does it work? According to the Los Angeles Daily News, using a handheld thermometer, the newly solar-reflective coated street in Canoga Park read a cool 70 degrees, as compared to a nearby black asphalt street where the temperature read 93 degrees.

CoolSeal is a product of California-based GuardTop LLC which says that the product will last seven years and “produce measurable reductions in temperatures.”

The U.S. EPA defines cool pavements as those that “reflect more solar energy, enhance water evaporation, or have been otherwise modified to remain cooler than conventional pavements.” They consider cool pavements to be important in mitigating the Urban Heat Island Effect. As there are no official standards to define cool paving materials as yet, the Transportation Research Board has formed a subcommittee to initiate an in-depth exploration.

One of the reasons research on cool pavements has lagged well behind technology for cool roofs is because pavement is considerably more complex, involving pedestrian, car and other traffic impact, landscaping, varying usages, changing shadows and thermal influences. Roofing is concerned with reflectivity only which can be achieved with a coating of products bought off the shelf.
There is much scientific testing to be done and standards to be set to advance the use of cool pavements. But, given the current interest and beginning momentum, before long, cool pavements may give new meaning to The Great (Cooler) White Way.

BTW, in answer to the long held belief that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk in very hot weather, all of the sources we checked said no. Why? Because sidewalks are lighter in color and don’t absorb as much heat as asphalt. So, can you fry an egg on asphalt? Yes. But it has to be at least 130 degrees which begs the question, “Why would you even want to try?”

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Steven_J._SchleiderBy Steven J. Schleider, MAI, LEED-AP BD + C President, Metropolitan Valuation Services

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