Clean Energy for the Empire State Building

By Karin Rives
Staff Writer

Washington - The Empire State Building on New York's Manhattan Island is an architectural icon. It also happens to be one of America's biggest "green building" success stories.

After a two-year, $20 million building retrofit that cut the Empire State Building's energy consumption by 38 percent, property managers recently signed a contract to purchase all electricity for the building from a company that offers only renewable energy. The two-year contract covers about 55 million kilowatt hours of wind power annually while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by almost 45 million kilos.

And yet, Malkin Holdings, the company managing the Empire State Building, doesn't pay a premium for the electricity.

"The clean energy provider bid against all providers, not just clean," Anthony Malkin, the company's president, told America.gov. "They were the low-cost provider."

Green Mountain Energy Co., the supplier of the power and one of the leading retailers of renewable energy in the United States, said the power deal is its largest to date.

"This demonstrates that Green Mountain can serve all sizes of commercial customers with renewable energy at a price they can afford, and that green doesn't have to be a trade-off," Paul Thomas, Green Mountain's chief executive, said when the deal was announced.

Costs for renewable energy have dropped in recent years, especially with the infusion of U.S. government subsidies for renewable energy. Historically, subsidies for producers of energy from fossil fuel sources dwarfed the public money invested in renewables, but that imbalance is beginning to level out.

At the G20 summit held in the South Korean capital of Seoul in November 2010, the United States and other member nations reaffirmed their commitment to phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels by 2020. Worldwide, fossil fuel subsidies reached $312 billion in 2009, compared with $57 billion in subsidies for renewables, according to the International Energy Agency.

POWER MIXES IN THE GRID

Because electrons produced by, say, a wind station, get mixed in the grid with those produced by a coal plant, there's no way for the Empire State Building or any other consumer to buy purely renewable power.

So Malkin Holdings purchased a renewable energy certificate that requires Green Mountain to add wind-generated power to the U.S. power grid that equals the amount of energy that the building uses. It's an increasingly popular way for companies to voluntarily address carbon dioxide emissions caused by electricity production and consumption.

Towering over all other buildings in central New York City, the Empire State Building has 102 floors to heat and cool and countless lights and computers to power up every day. Commercial tenants in the building are mindful of their energy costs, which makes the recent building efficiency work and the green energy good selling points, Malkin said.

"They see it as both a chance to reduce their costs and to fulfill mandates to make less of an environmental impact," he said.

Tenants also benefit from happier and more productive employees, he said. Under the retrofit, more than 6,500 windows were replaced to provide better natural light and insulation. This has been popular with workers who now enjoy a healthier office environment, Malkin said.

ENDS

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