New York, NY Building owners and landlords have a lot of maintenance and management work to handle on a day-to-day basis. When storms hit that sometimes means they also have to deal with weather-related building issues, including power outages.
The Brevoort, a 1950’s multi-unit residential co-op in Greenwich Village, converted from an oil heat to a natural gas combined heat and power (CHP) system as part of an energy-efficiency green initiative. Building owners made the switch to save money and reduce their carbon footprint. An additional benefit of the conversion was recognized when Hurricane Sandy hit N.Y. in 2012.
The Superstorm left large parts of the city without power and water for up to five days. Amidst the outage, the Brevoort was one of the only buildings on the lower third of Manhattan that had the ability to maintain power when the local utility grid failed. The backup system was able to provide heat and power to the entire building. Key was the ability to keep the elevators running which, in a 20-story building with many older residents, proved invaluable. New Yorkers came to the Brevoort from other areas of the city for shelter, nearly doubling the occupancy of the building during the storm. The Brevoort remained powered 24/7 until power was restored to the local grid.
The core of the Brevoort’s system is powered by Tecogen’s InVerde 100 kW combined heat and power (CHP) technology. The CHP system uses a natural gas engine to produce electricity while free waste heat from the engine is recovered and used for heating the building and domestic hot water. Because the waste heat is then fed back into the building, the system achieves significant improvement in overall operating efficiency to reduce the facility’s energy consumption and bills considerably. Energy savings from a CHP system can be upwards of 50 percent annually.
In addition to the energy and cost savings, Tecogen’s InVerde CHP systems are equipped with an inverter and controlled by microgrid software – allowing the units to operate in island-mode and act as a backup power source during an outage - a feature the Brevoort utilized during the devastating storm. The owners were so impressed with the system that they installed the Tecogen InVerde in an additional property, and so did a number of neighboring buildings.
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