NYPA reports significant progress made in first year of statewide energy efficiency program

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
March 13, 2021

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) on March 8 reported that it has made significant progress during the first year of BuildSmart2025, a statewide energy efficiency program aimed at drastically reducing energy usage in state facilities.

The energy saving program calls for a reduction in site energy use in state buildings by 11 trillion British Thermal Units (BTUs) by the end of 2025.

As of the end of 2020, state entities have implemented or are actively developing energy projects with calculated energy savings of more than 4 trillion BTUs with the expectation that they will reduce an additional 1 trillion BTUs by the end of 2021, NYPA said.

 There are 68 state entities participating in the BuildSmart 2025 program, with an assigned cumulative goal of reducing energy use in state facilities by 11 trillion BTUs. The goal is equivalent to a 34% reduction in energy use from a baseline year of 2015.

The program goal directly supports Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which calls for a reduction in energy use statewide by 185 trillion BTUs.

Additionally, the program supports the work of the GreenNY Council, which helps state agencies implement the state’s lead-by-example directives.

NYPA noted that BuildSmart2025 builds on the success of BuildSmartNY, which was launched in 2012 and directed state agencies to reduce their source energy use intensity 20 percent by 2020.

Including committed projects, the state exceeded that goal, recording a combined source energy use intensity reduction of 22.6 percent.

NYPA financed more than $650 million in energy efficiency projects at state buildings under BuildSmartNY and NYPA currently has plans to invest more than $850 million in energy efficiency projects at state buildings over the next several years as part of BuildSmart2025.

NYPA offers a wide variety of energy technology and renewable energy services to its governmental customers under BuildSmart2025, including energy audits, project engineering, design, installation, and construction management.

The energy efficiency projects carried out by NYPA include high efficiency lighting retrofits, occupancy and daylighting lighting sensors, building and energy management systems, boilers, chillers, air-handling systems, thermal storage, microgrids, solar photovoltaic systems, digester gas systems, and emerging energy technologies. NYPA provides financing with full cost recovery by its customers.

Some of NYPA’s state customers include the State University of New York, City University of New York, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Office of General Services, Office of Mental Health and Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Some major energy efficiency projects already completed under the program include more than $23 million for a new chiller plant and cooling towers at Grand Central Terminal, nearly $24 million in comprehensive air-handling improvements at the State University of New York at Stony Brook Life and Science building, and nearly $18 million in boiler and chiller plant upgrades at W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus.

NYPA’s NY Energy Manager directly supports BuildSmart2025 by providing energy-use monitoring and suggestions to customers for improvements.

Through the NY Energy Manager service, NYPA tracks hundreds of energy efficiency projects implemented by state agencies and benchmarks their performance into the future.

Over the last 20 years, the NYPA Board of Trustees has approved nearly $4 billion in investments on energy efficiency projects with state and local government customers around the state, supporting hundreds of energy-saving projects.