Empire State Building a Blueprint for Success in Retrofit
Colorado based Rocky Mountain Institute has won the Sustainable Building Industry Council’s ”Beyond Green High Performance Building Award” for the retrofit of the Empire State Buildingthe Empire State Building retrofit. “As our nation pursues strategies that allow us to use our natural resources more efficiently, a focus on high-performance buildings is a must,” SBIC Executive Director Bud DeFlaviis stated. “Rocky Mountain Institute and their partners have demonstrated the role that retrofits will play in this effort. Their work will undoubtedly help inspire other forward-thinking building practitioners who are creating a new generation of buildings that are mindful of the people they serve and the environment they impact.”
Goal: RetroFit to all Commercial Buildings by 2050
This award comes as RMI launches a new initiative, RetroFit. Building off both the success and lessons learned from the Empire State Building project, this initiative–which will be funded in large part by philanthropy–aims to encourage the retrofit of the entire U.S. commercial building stock to use, on average, 50 percent less energy by 2050.
Retrofitting the World’s Most Famous Office Building
A year after RMI and partners completed a retrofit design of the Empire State Building, many other large commercial properties are lining up to follow in its footsteps. (Watch video)
Building on our success with the Empire State Building, RMI is taking retrofits to an even deeper level, finding ways to achieve bigger energy savings faster and applying them to a greater number and wider variety of building types. Under this new initiative, called RetroFitTM, RMI hopes to spur the retrofit of at least 500 buildings within five years. Beyond that, RMI are designing additional projects with an even higher goal-to initiate a process that will encourage the retrofit of the entire U.S. commercial building stock to use, on average, 50 percent less energy by 2050.
Approach
RMI will work with building or portfolio owners who control and influence large amounts of commercial real estate to test new approaches to “deeper and cheaper” retrofits in their own building. RMI also plan to work with a select group of “service providers” (design teams, property managers, and ESCOs) to develop the skills and service packages required to deliver the potential level of energy savings that retrofits need to achieve at scale.
RMI is currently identifying partners for the following additional projects:
Project to Portfolio
A franchise business presents opportunities for developing a replicable model of energy efficiency retrofits across a portfolio of similar building types, such as car dealerships, supermarkets or box retail. Through our analysis and audit process, retrofits are standardized, making each building retrofit faster and cheaper. retrofits.
Package Retrofits
Sometimes a few basic measures create deep savings. This project approach takes a set of measures and applies them repeatedly to a number of commercial buildings with similar characteristics.
This approach is specifically useful for a commonly underserved retrofit-smaller buildings with individual ownership patterns. This can fruitfully be combined with utility demand-side incentive programs to address financing barriers.
Optimizing ESCOs
The purpose of this project is to re-vamp the way energy service companies operate to include whole systems design for much greater energy savings (>50 percent) in ‘ripe’ buildings. The project encourages more transparent contractual guidance to ensure industry reputation and owner value. This “service provider” enhancement project has the potential to greatly enhance the quantity, quality and ability in the market to provide deep, cost effective building retrofits.