SESSION 26

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00am – Metro 4A

ABSTRACT:

This panel will discuss the ways in which young professionals have affected change in the New York City’s green building industry, and opportunities for future progress.

MODERATOR:

Brittany Grech, Sustainability Coordinator, YRG Sustainability

SPEAKERS:

Eric Deuser, Sustainable Construction Manager, One Bryant Park
Jessica Cooper, Architect, LB Architects
Joel Ndreu, Associate, Jaros, Baum & Bolles
Charles Marino, AKF

DESCRIPTION:

Urban Green Council’s Emerging Professionals represent a coalition of students and young professionals in the New York City area dedicated to promoting the integration of future leaders into the green building movement. They host periodic educational seminars on green building, promote social events to build the Emerging Professionals community, and arrange green building tours in New York City.

With the nonstop growth and interest in the green building industry in recent years, New York’s firms have rapidly evolved towards more sustainable building design, construction and operations. Young professionals are key contributors to this dynamic movement, and have the capacity to influence significant change within their firms, client companies, and industry colleagues. In this session our panelists will share their approach to jump-starting sustainability initiatives within their circles of influence as young professionals. They will also discuss actions and techniques young professionals can employ to spread the green message.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 31

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 11:00am – Metro 2B

ABSTRACT:

The fundamentals of phytoremediation and bioremediation technologies in the built environment as well as three distinct integration strategies: as interior deployment, as integrated into the building enclosure, and as exterior deployment.

SPEAKERS:

Jason Vollen, Principal Investigator, Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, Associate Professor of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rob Rothblatt, Associate Director, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Paul Mankiewicz, Executive Director, Gaia Institute
Chris Garvin, Partner, Terrapin Bright Green

DESCRIPTION:

Plants in buildings have aesthetic, physiological and psychological benefits that have been qualified and increasingly quantified in various ways. An emerging benefit of the integration of next generation living systems is as strategies for environmental remediation and energy reduction. In addition to discussing the fundamentals of phytoremediation and bioremediation technologies in the built environment, this session will discuss three distinct integration strategies: as interior deployment, as integrated into the building enclosure, and as exterior deployment.

• The Active Modular Phytoremediation (AMP) System, developed by CASE and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is an interior deployment purposed to improve indoor air quality and reduce the energy costs associated with HVAC systems. The first deployment for the AMP System will be in the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP designed Public Safety Answering Center (PSAC) II Facility located in the Bronx and will be discussed in detail regarding the critical mission of PSAC II and the value of integrating living systems as well as the challenged of integrating first time deployments.

• Case studies developed by Terrapin Bright Green will be used to discuss the integration of livings systems into the building enclosure, taking the traditional doublewalled building envelope and transforming it with biophilic elements while challenging the self-imposed limits of what a building envelop can achieve to increase a building’s sustainability and human comfort.

• Gaia Institutes’ El Jardín del Paraíso Stormwater Capture Park is an exterior deployment that reclaims green space for the city while sequestering lead contamination. It is exemplary of several projects currently undertaken by the Gaia Institute that showcase bioremediation with an increase in biodiversity.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 18

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 4:00pm – Metro 2C

ABSTRACT:

This panel will provide an update on the current challenges faced by the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing model. The panel will also provide an overview of other public/private efforts currently under development whose goal will be to deploy a multi-pronged strategy to accelerate the creation of a scaled cross-sector energy efficiency retrofit market in New York City.

SPEAKERS:

Neal J. Parikh, Senior Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability
Greg Hale, Senior Financial Policy Specialist, Natural Resources Defense Council
Michael Karlosky, Director, Sustainable Public Infrastructure, Wells Fargo Securities

DESCRIPTION:

It is widely recognized that difficulty accessing capital deters many property owners from retrofitting their buildings. Over the last two years, twenty-three states, including New York, have enacted legislation authorizing the development of municipal financing programs known as Property Assessed Clean Energy (“PACE”) programs. The DOE’s “Better Buildings” (aka EECBG) awards allocated over $450 million in federal funds to help states and cities set up and implement energy efficiency retrofit programs, including approximately $150 million earmarked for PACE financing. However, the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), and their regulated entities Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae, along with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) as regulator of the nationally chartered banks, have taken various actions this summer that have effectively halted PACE programs, leaving municipal governments scrambling to develop alternative efficiency retrofit financing programs.

Greg Hale will provide an update on the current status of the federal impasse with respect to PACE residential and commercial programs, in the aftermath of this summer’s regulatory actions, and will discuss the current strategies to rescue PACE programs through federal legislation, litigation and possible negotiated solutions. He will also present an economic cost/benefit analysis which analyzes the risk from PACE to existing mortgage lenders in the context of the economic activity that would be generated by the PACE-financed retrofits.

Michael Karlosky will then discuss PACE Commercial programs from the perspective of a lending institution, including a look at the prospects for PACE Commercial in light of the recent OCC bulletin, and his thoughts on how a financial institution might develop an internal set of metrics to apply when asked to subordinate an existing commercial loan to new PACE financing.

Finally, Neal Parikh will provide a perspective on PACE Commercial from Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability – including concerns that would need to be overcome in Albany. He will also discuss the City’s other efforts, in collaboration with philanthropic and private actors, to help finance a range of retrofit transactions in NYC, while also focusing on local demand generation and economic and workforce development that will be necessary to create a full scale multi-sector energy efficiency retrofit market in NYC. These efforts aim to create a potential model for municipalities that seek to leverage committed federal resources with private capital in order to scale up a local retrofit market in the service of public goals without additional public cost.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 10

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 2:00pm – Metro 2B

ABSTRACT:

A panel of business leaders and subject-matter experts will explore the economic and environmental benefits of ‘building to grid’ smart grid strategies for green building efforts, and examine how interoperable systems come together to deliver a real Building-to-Grid Smart Grid solution that will contribute to the achievement of PLANYC and provide multiple public benefits for New York City and the region.

MODERATOR:

Audrey Zibelman, CEO, Viridity Energy

SPEAKERS:

Jim Gallagher, Energy Policy Advisor, Office of Mayor Bloomberg
Troy De Vries, Project Manager, Con Edison
Shiv Mani, Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Roger N. Anderson, Con Edison Senior Scholar, Columbia University

DESCRIPTION:

‘Building to Grid’ Smart Grid solutions leverage the computing and telecommunications advances of the modern era to deliver efficient and reliable power to large buildings. These strategies minimize cost and mitigate the stability risks that large power users represent to system operators by creating a secure and interoperable interface.

The idea of a Smart Grid describes the destination at the end of a very long road. The problem at hand is an antiquated electricity delivery system that is struggling to meet the needs of the modern era. Delivering high volumes of energy across an infrastructure that was commissioned decades before the age of the internet is inefficient as well as a security risk.

Recent federal, state, and local support of Wind, Solar, and other Alternative energy technologies have placed an emphasis on sustainability—and rightfully so— as these sectors have matured substantially in the last decade. Still, the benefit of these and other advances are exposed to an inefficient and unreliable power delivery system. Aging equipment and the lack of real-time visibility are just a few of the major problems.

A major challenge also exists on the other side of the meter. Every customer and every light bulb has an effect on the grid, which requires a response from an energy generator. But huge amounts of energy is wasted and, even worse, the unpredictability of demand indicates the grid operators’ inability to foresee what will happen in the future.

Fortunately, a variety of solutions are developing to address every weak link along the chain.
One the areas which shows the greatest potential for Smart Grid improvement is ‘Building-to-Grid’. ‘Building to Grid’ solutions leverage the computing and telecommunications advances of the modern era to deliver efficient and reliable power to Demand-side users while minimizing cost and mitigating the stability risks that large power users represent to system operators by creating a secure and interoperable interface.

A Secure Interoperable Open Smart Grid (SIOSG) has the capability of providing the missing link to energy efficiency and demand side management. This provides evaluation, measurement, and verification through ubiquitous deployment of intelligence and direct access to aggregated load management and grid connected distributed resources.

New York City and the NYCEDC have 31 buildings under their direct energy management. The SIOSG demonstration project with Con Edison under the DOE sponsored Smart Grid Grant will capture the full potential of demand response, grid integrated, manage the load, and will enable energy efficiency for a customer to achieve curtailable and flexible load from three different facilities in Brooklyn. An additional site in Long Island City or Lower Manhattan will also be a part of this demonstration. The SIOSG will integrate to the city’s building management systems and enable the city’s energy assets to react in real time to the system needs of Con Edison (e.g., for distribution system and network load relief) and the NYISO, to schedule curtailed and shifted load into the day ahead and real time wholesale energy and ancillary service markets.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 15

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 4:00 pm – Altman Gallery

ABSTRACT:

An exploration of the financial value of, and underwriting guidelines for, green buildings.

MODERATOR:

Daniel Winters, Managing Director, Evolution Partners

SPEAKERS:

Doug Lawrence, Managing Partner, Five Stone Green Capital

Additional speakers TBA.

DESCRIPTION:

An exploration of the financial value of, and underwriting guidelines for, green buildings. Representatives from private equity investment firms and lending institutions will discuss how they assess the additional value of green buildings and how this influences the structure of their investment and lending policies. The session will be moderated by Daniel Winters, Managing Director of Evolution Partners and Vice Chair of Capital Markets Partnership, the non-profit responsible for the ANSI-certified Green Building Underwriting Standards.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 6

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 11:00 am – Metro 4B

ABSTRACT:

This presentation brings together experts in envelopes, electrical and mechanical engineering, and sustainable design to explore various integrated solutions focusing on hospitals, which operate around the clock and have very specific HVAC and electrical requirements.

MODERATOR:

Klaas Rodenburg, Sustainable Design Coordinator, Stantec

SPEAKERS:

Ray Pradinuk, Senior Architect, Leader of Healthcare Research and Innovation, Stantec
Paul Marmion, Senior Principal, Buildings Engineering, Stantec, and ASHRAE Advanced IAQ Project Committee
Monica Olmos, Senior Lighting Designer, Stantec
Steven Cantor, Senior Landscape Architect, Stantec
Joseph Donovan, Senior Principal Architect, Stantec

DESCRIPTION:

Modern hospitals consume more than 2.5 times the energy as an office building of comparable size.. Every year hospitals around the world spend a large amount money on energy for lighting (25%) and HVAC (45%), 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week. This makes healthcare facilities the perfect proving ground for energy efficiency concepts. To significantly improve the energy performance of a hospital requires the efforts of multiple experts working together towards a common goal.

This presentation brings together experts in envelopes, electrical and mechanical engineering and sustainable design to explore various integrated solutions focusing on hospitals, which operate around the clock and have very specific HVAC and electrical requirements. When it comes to improving a building’s performance there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead it is the creative integration of many individual elements ranging from the conventional to the leading edge materials and concepts that push the envelope to the next level. The solutions discussed at this presentation will focus on an integrated approach that recognizes that the envelope must work in concert with the needs of the occupants and other systems.

This session will follow the format of a mini-charrette in which the moderator will engage the audience to join in the discussion.. At the end of the session attendees will have some new, practical ideas and concepts that will be posted on a blog where the discussions can continue.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 40

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 2:00 pm – Metro 4B

ABSTRACT:

To date, LEED for Homes has achieved very little penetration in the New York City and other urban markets. This panel will discuss the challenges and opportunities of completing LEED for home projects in an urban environment.

MODERATOR:

Maureen Mahle, Program Manager, Steven Winter Associates, Inc.

SPEAKERS:

Alison Novak, Senior Project Manager, The Hudson Companies
Gina Buffone, Former Senior Project Manager, Habitat for Humanity, New York City
Lauren Noonan, Project Manager, New York University

DESCRIPTION:

Panelists will present their experiences in promoting awareness among their stakeholders and achieving LEED-H for both market rate and affordable housing units. This session will discuss both the overarching issues that have arisen from this recently established rating system as well as some detailed lessons learned.

Projects to be discussed include:

• Third+ Bond: Nine 4-story buildings, 5 units each. Market-rate condominiums. New construction.
• Knickerbocker – 50 units, 4 stories. Gut rehab.
• Atlantic Ave apartments, Three 4-story buildings, 11 units each. Affordable housing.
• Washington Mews, faculty housing, New York University

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 23

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00 am – Metro 2A

ABSTRACT:

PlaNYC, New York City’s sustainable growth plan, called for expanding the city’s clean distributed generation capacity by 800 MW. Though a total of 64 MW has been installed over the past three years, the city has a long way to go to reach its 800 MW goal. This presentation will focus on existing and emerging distributed generation strategies at the building and district scale that can contribute to de-carbonizing the City’s utility grid.

MODERATOR:

Kenneth A. Lewis, Director, New York Office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

SPEAKERS:

Steven Caputo, Policy Adviser, New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability
Florence D. Hudson, Energy & Environment Executive and Cloud Computing Strategist, IBM
Margarett Jolly, Distributed Generation Umbudswoman, Consolidated Edison

DESCRIPTION:

The presentation will begin with a look at 7 World Trade Center as an example of distributed generation technologies utilizing micro-turbines and a using Con Edison steam delivery system to generate electricity on-site. Design implications of distributed renewable energy systems on buildings will be illustrated with introductions of several Center for Architecture Science and Ecology CASE research areas.

The second part of the presentation will describe the critical need for distributed generation to aid in de-carbonization efforts and enhancing reliability, particularly through peak demand reductions. Incorporating distributed generation into She will then describe how distributed generation can be incorporated into Con Edison’s steam network—which is the largest in the country–—will also be discussed, along with and also discuss various incentives for clean distributed generation.

This portion of the session presentation will end with a summary of a range of distributed generation technologies available to design teams including such as Combined Heat and Power Plants (CHP), steam turbines, ice storage, and solar power.

In addition, the third presentation, the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability will describe the city’s efforts to encourage distributed generation in the context of PlaNYC. The city will discuss its efforts through the Department of Buildings to streamline permitting of co-generation facilities, as well as the creation of Solar Empowerment Zones and a citywide solar map to accelerate the adoption of solar power.

The session will finish with a Florence Hudson of IBM Smart Cities/Smart Buildings will round out the discussion of by highlighting what is possible through a smarter approach to building design and planning, and how can innovation in design can lead the way.

Learning objectives/Questions addressed:

• How can distributed generation be used in a dense urban environment like NYC.
• How can distributed generation be interconnected into existing steam and electric utility grids?
• What incentives and policies exist to encourage clean distributed generation?
• What are the political and policy implications?
• What are the new technologies for distributed generation?
• How can innovative design and planning lead the way?

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 34

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 11:00 am – Metro 4B

ABSTRACT:

This session will showcase how the available tools and current requirements of new High- Performance Buildings affect the design of building envelopes and where limitations in current tools and standards are evolving to allow accurate quantification of new high-performance forms in architecture.

MODERATOR:

Steven Baumgartner, Associate, Buro Happold

SPEAKERS:

Teresa Rainey, Associate, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Philip Haves, Leader, Simulation Research Group and Commercial Building Systems Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

DESCRIPTION:

Long before the publication of ASHRAE Standard 189.1 on High-Performance Green Buildings, design teams around the world have been pushing proposals for high-performance architectural design and incorporation of innovative low-carbon systems. Based on first principles, and without the extensive library of performance modeling tools available to design teams today, many successful projects were realized.

In today’s design environment, the energy model is king and ASHRAE, LEED, the New York City Energy Code and NYSERDA set the standards by which designers must assess and report the simulated performance of their designs. The standardization of energy model inputs has opened a fair and consistent dialogue on projected energy performance, but do the available tools and methodologies set by the rule makers actually limit creativity and innovation? The panel will discuss how high-performance designs are realized, how they must be accounted for under current and emerging Sustainability Standards, and how the tools currently available are developing to allow the best ideas to be fully accredited and validated.

ASHRAE’s ongoing efforts in developing Engineering Standards form the backbone of the Sustainability Requirements for new design projects in the New York City area. ASHRAE Standard 189.1 along with 90.1, 55 on Thermal Comfort, and 62 on Ventilation interrelate are all carefully considered throughout the building energy modeling process. Panelists will discuss how these standards may contradict the objectives of realizing a high-performance building.

Panelists will explain SOM’s design process in realizing a high-performance design by outlining the modeling programs that are used and how these tools relate to the Sustainability Requirements of a typical project. The panel will include examples to illustrate how aspects of a high performance design, when assessed through existing standards and tools, provide contradictory results. SOM teams are integrating bespoke advanced tools in their design processes. Current standards and modeling tools are evolving to allow more innovative design opportunities to receive due credit.

Then Philip Haves (LBNL)  will delve deeper into the actual mechanics of how energy modeling programs must evolve and innovate in order to harness and assign credit to all architectural and engineering innovations, while still providing a robust energy modeling environment.  Philip will also outline the current work that LBNL is doing with EnergyPlus in developing a new Graphical User Interface (GUI), with input from leading A&E firms, including SOM.  Philip will discuss how this new GUI, coupled with additional modeling functionality is allowing more and more advanced approaches to building design to be validated and credited in line with the requirements of ASHRAE Standards and LEED.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

SESSION 8

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 2:00 pm – Altman Gallery

ABSTRACT:

Recent studies explore energy loss from building envelopes.  One of these, commissioned by Urban Green Council and released at Urban Green Expo, examines the impact of room air conditioners (Window ACs, Sleeve ACs, and PTACs) on building envelope thermal conductivity and air leakage. The other examines the impact of glass envelopes on building energy use.

PRESENTERS:

Fiona Cousins, Principal, Arup
Mark Zuluaga, Steven Winters Associates

MODERATOR:

Scott Frank, Partner, Jaros, Baum & Bolles

PANELISTS:

Leo Baez, Director of Construction, Enterprise Community Partners
Charlotte Matthews, Vice President for Sustainability, Related Companies
Mo Siegel, President, Co-CEO, Ice Air

DESCRIPTION:

INTRODUCTION AND GLASS ENVELOPES STUDY

The building envelope has a substantial impact on building energy use, affecting heating, cooling, and lighting loads directly.  Its thermal integrity and resistance to infiltration depend on the structural components specified, the skill and care with which they are assembled, and the level of maintenance contributing to ongoing performance.

Glass Envelopes Study:

Highly glazed facades have been a design norm for the past half-century, and provide both a pleasant connection to the outdoors and the possibility of ample daylighting. However, with a strong push for sustainable building design the question arises whether these types of facades are actually energy efficient.

To approach this question, Arup New York, in conjunction with Environmental Building News, modeled the energy performance of large buildings, varying several key parameters, including building footprints, US locations, glazing types, and the fraction of wall given over to vision glazing.

The analysis showed that there is a distinct energy penalty associated with increasing the amount of vision glazing, and this penalty is more dramatic in lower performance glazing types and in more extreme climates. This has an obvious impact on the size of the heating and cooling plant capacity and on fuel and electricity consumption. While these results are not surprising, they do provide quantifiable data to support further analysis.

While the connection to the outdoors and daylighting are important in building design, the energy penalty associated with substantial vision glazing is also a major consideration. Proper design should aim to balance these keys inputs.

ROOM AIR CONDITIONER STUDY

Energy codes and sustainable design increasingly stress the importance of building envelopes. However, in cities across the country, builders and tenants routinely penetrate the envelope with metallic, heat-conducting devices: window and sleeve air conditioners, PTACs, and packaged terminal heat pumps (PTHPs).  Surprisingly, their impact on envelope performance is not considered or regulated in energy codes, whether following the prescriptive or the performance path.

Recognizing an important research need, Urban Green Council established a competitive solicitation to undertake original research on this topic and selected Marc Zuluaga and Sean Maxwell of Steven Winter Associates (SWA).

This second portion of the session will present their paper and findings on the impact of PTACs, PTHPs and window and sleeve air conditioners on building envelopes, examining the impact on both thermal conductivity and on infiltration in a cross section of building types.  The results will be extrapolated to estimate the total impact on New York City’s energy use, and will also examine potential alternative technologies that would improve building envelope integrity and reduce energy consumption.

Following this presentation, a panel of members of the Research Advisory Committee will discuss the findings and the study’s implications for building design and product innovation.

> REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION