Building Rating is Live!!!

New York City building energy efficiency scores are now live! Effective October 31, 2020, all buildings greater than 25,000 square feet must post their energy efficiency grade, visible to all by every and all entrances. Those that do not, risk getting fined.

The Energy Efficiency Score (or grade) is based on the building’s Energy Star Score (ESS) received in 2018. The 2018 city-wide benchmarking data is not yet publicly available, but we analyzed the same data from 2017. Our conclusion is that 89% of those approximately 12,000 buildings were not reporting their energy usage correctly.

How do we know that?

We’ve studied statistics😊 and have extensive experience analyzing data.

Here are the problems with Local Law 95:

Reporting Whole Building

Out of 12,000 buildings reporting in 2017, there were approximately only 1,333 (11%!) buildings that appear to be reporting their electricity and heating fuel correctly. Those buildings mostly got a ‘D’, and their total building energy usage is attributable to, on average, 28% electricity and 72% cooking gas and heating fuel. We spoke with our friends at HeatWatch, and they confirmed that approximately 70% of the average building’s energy use comes from heating fuel.

In most buildings, approximately 2% of their total energy use is from cooking gas.

What needs to be included in the energy consumption reporting:

1)     All electricity, including

a.      Electricity used by the building’s common areas

b.      Electricity used by the residents, even if those are directly metered

c.      Electricity used by commercial tenants, even if those are directly metered

2)     Cooking gas

3)     Heating Fuel, no matter if the building uses oil, natural gas, steam or electricity

The Energy grades are based on the energy used by the entire building. This includes the commercial tenants as well as residents. Commercial tenants use a lot of energy, with excessive amounts of light fixtures, refrigerators, large HVAC systems, storage space, etc., many with lights on 24/7.

We picked 3 random buildings, each that were either:

1)     not reporting the electric use by the residents inside the apartments, even if directly metered

2)     not reporting their heating fuel

The following table summarize the proportionate use of electricity versus cooking gas and heating fuel. This small sample makes it is easy to see the outliers: 

We spoke with some of the board members of those building. The ones that got a B were ecstatic, as they should be. They attribute it to converting to natural gas and other energy conservation methods. In our opinion, they did not report their energy usage correctly to include the entire building’s consumption.  

Reporting and Timing

So, you got your first letter grade and most of you are devastated (but some are thrilled).

The grades that were required to be posted this year was from energy used in 2018, reported in 2019.

Those buildings that didn’t report correctly and got an A or B, enjoy for now! In our opinion, it probably won’t last very long…

The best any building or coop & condo board can do right now is to reduce how much energy they use. However, that won’t show for a very long time. Here’s a timetable of when a change implemented now will show:

To summarize, any changes that are done now, basically in 2021, will not show on your grade until 2023!

Buildings with an F

We spoke with several buildings that received an F. This grade is given to buildings that did not report. However, several of those buildings actually did report. As can be expected regarding government regulations, it is not enough to just report the data; buildings must also print and submit their report. Failure to do so resulted in an F. Instructions were not the easiest to follow and not all buildings could afford hiring a consultant to do the reporting for them.

Buildings with an N

Buildings less than 25,000 square feet are exempt from benchmarking. However, they still need to post their grade visible to all at all entrances to the building. This grade is an N.

Inconsistent EnergyStar Scores

We are still investigating year over-year-changes in ESS scores. Most buildings have the same or close to the same ESS year-over-year. However, some buildings have fluctuations like the ones illustrated here, which don’t look correct.

ESS is on a scale of 1-100

The Worst Part

The worst part is not that you will get a poor grade to display in your building entrance. The worst part is that in 2024, you will start getting fines for your ESS not being high enough. This is part of Local Law 97, otherwise known as the Global Mobilization Act of 2019, NYC’s version of The Green New Deal.

Read our previous article on Building Energy Efficiency grades here.

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