It Depends On How You Look At It

At first glance, this article on how to reduce New York’s energy use seems fairly grim. But there are hidden bright spots. For example, if the cost of an optimal retrofit is twelve percent of a building’s value, that means that retrofitting is a lot less expensive than replacement. For example, if the problem is concentrated in some 14,500 buildings, that represents less than two percent of the city’s building stock. For example, the city has been benchmarking buildings for eight years, so there’s a lot of data about defining which the problem buildings are. And finally, incremental improvements already have us moving in the right direction.