CPC's Green Financing Initiative: Common sense energy efficiency upgrades for multifamily buildings

The Community Preservation Corp. (CPC), a non-profit affordable housing lender, has recently launched its Green Financing Initiative. The initiative is a fitting complement to a month long campaign to promote public understanding of our energy needs and to reduce energy consumption within our communities. CPC's Green Financing Initiative is a public/private partnership to provide $1 billion in construction and mortgage loans to multifamily housing owners for energy efficient upgrades and property retrofits in low, moderate and middle-income communities. By creating an integrated delivery system that combines financing with technical expertise and access to subsidies, CPC aims to retrofit between 15,000 to 20,000 apartments in occupied multifamily buildings over the next few years, reducing carbon emissions and realizing significant savings for both owners and residents of New York's older housing stock. Studies across New York state since the mid-1980s have shown that building energy consumption is wildly divergent, even with similar buildings owned by the same owner. The difference in energy usage per s/f in a management company's portfolio can vary by a factor of 7:1, making many buildings candidates for common sense upgrades that generate greater cash flow. Energy audits of existing multifamily buildings typically identify the same major areas of improvement. Following are some commonly suggested methods for improving energy efficiency for most multifamily buildings Increase air sealing/fire stopping in all apartment & common areas One of the easiest ways to make multifamily buildings more energy efficient is to stop the excessive amounts of air leaking in and out of the building. Air sealing and fire stopping of holes from floor to floor, apartment to apartment, and inside to outside provide several very positive effects, including: reducing the flow of warmed or cooled air (and apartment odors) from floor to floor; giving fewer avenues for vermin to move from inside to out or apartment to apartment; and making the building significantly safer in a fire, by reducing the number of avenues for smoke and fire to travel. More efficient and properly sized heating and hot water boilers Owners should work to select both the proper model and the size of a replacement heating system. More often than not, owners replace old systems with the same one, where increases in efficiency, and most probably, smaller units would provide much greater efficiency. More efficient heating and hot water controls Overheated apartments usually mean there are no apartment controls (thermostats or thermostatic radiator valves) or the control device in the basement doesn't work efficiently. Tenants then regulate the heat by opening the windows to control the temperature, causing significant energy waste. Add to that the inability to turn the heat down at night (quite common) and buildings become even more overheated during hours when the temperatures should be lower for comfort. In addition, most buildings in N.Y.C. use 40-50% of their heating energy to make hot water, which is often dangerously hot (137° water burns human skin). Better showerheads, aerators and water saving toilets Excessive water usage is caused by over-consuming toilets, showerheads, aerators, and leaks, which waste both water and hot water. New toilets that flush using one gallon of water actually work better than most that flush with 4-5 gallons. Showerheads should be below 2 gallons per minute (gpm), bathroom sinks at .5 gpm, and kitchen sinks at 1.5 gpm. Upgrading of ventilation systems where present Existing ventilation systems installed in windowless kitchens and baths are typically centralized, with oversized fans and little, if any, balancing controls. State-of-the-art, non-mechanical balancing controls and properly sized fans reduce energy lost from the building, as well as fan energy. Complete apartment, common area, and exterior lighting retrofit w/upgraded controls New fluorescent and other technologies are significantly more cost effective and can easily replace the incandescent lighting which still exists in many buildings. Common area and outdoor lights should be controlled by motion and light sensors to reduce their on-time. Energy Star appliances and more efficient motors and pumps Energy Star refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes washers, and air conditioners use up to half the electricity as their non Energy Star counterparts and they typically cost the same. Furthermore, motors use half of the electricity in the US, and whether powering a fan, pump, elevator, or similar device, are typically oversized. Better specifications for windows and insulation Keeping the warm and the cold air in the building is a function of the thermal properties of the windows, walls, and roof. These systems need to be replaced with state-of-the-art insulated systems that work better, as their lifetimes are typically in the 20+ year range. "Building as a system" thinking + increased construction management Working as a team to develop a rehab or retrofit plan is an important step in the process, and can often produce incredible efficiencies of scale and real value engineering solutions. As part of a rehab that calls for greater attention to detail, greater levels of construction management will be required. Coordinated access to existing programs (NYSERDA, Weatherization, Utilities) There are numerous grant, loan and tax incentives available through N.Y.C., NYS, the federal government and various utilities. CPC has a long history of working with various programs and will help owners access a variety of subsidies provided by government and the utility companies as incentives for owners to perform retrofits. Decades-long proven programs such as the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) have Federal mandates that make them unique, yet WAP has been used for rehab projects across the city by savvy owners. Utilities, typically driven by Public Utility Service (PSC) guidelines, are flexible if an organized third party pipeline is demonstrated to their ratepayers and stockholders. Currently, CPC is collaborating with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the NYS division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) to simplify the application process and eligibility requirements for the WAP program and NYSERDA's Multifamily Performance Program. Andrew Padian is the vice president for energy initiatives, of The Community Preservation Corp., New York, N.Y.