When Energy Efficiency is a Trap

Massive new programs for energy efficiency are being deployed all around, and however wonderful they are, when they are applied in the right places, it remains equally true that under certain circumstances, they can be disastrously wrong.

As pointed out throughout this site, there is a huge class of buildings in New York, in the form of the City's old-line apartment buildings which because of their size and proportions make excellent targets for deploying renewable energy, yet they are caught up in the energy efficiency craze, and in the process destroying their renewable energy potential with tax payer subsidies.

The key insight is that the two investment strategies energy independence and energy efficiency of existing infrastructure are mutually exclusive, and progressively so. In other words if your building at the outset had a reasonable potential do switch to a largely renewable infrastructure, then every investment you make unthinkingly in energy efficiency of your fossil-fuel based infrastructure makes it harder financially to switch to the renewable energy strategy.

Successive investments in energy efficiency do not cumulatively add up to energy independence, on the contrary, they act to postpone energy independence indefinitely, and perpetuate your building, as a consumer of fossil fuels, albeit an ever more efficient one, and from that point of view they are customer acquisition programs for the fossil fuel based economy. In short, if there is an alternative, to unthinkingly commit more and more money to becoming simply more efficient in consuming fossil fuel based energy, is a bit like a junkie learning to 'manage' his habit.

The current spate of programs that are geared to achieving an 15% reduction in energy usage across the board, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, as in the process there are thousands of buildings that would have been capable of 60-80% reduction of fossil fuel based energy usage, but they will never make that change, because of a whole system of incentives and programs that encourage them to make small incremental changes in usage, in lieu of radical re-engineering their energy systems and achieving deep energy change.

DaBx PlaNYC2020 Draft

Finally I have brought together the whole integrated vision for a renewable infrastructure, as an alternative, but also complimentary approach to the city's PlaNYC2030.

It is the city's old line apartment buildings, those grand old buildings of 5-6 stories that made the glory days of the Grand Concourse etc, which are the richest target of opportunity for what the city apparently calls Deep Energy Change - a radical shift to a renewable base of energy production. It is these grand old buildings which are there in their hundreds and thousands, that potentially are the proverbial low hanging fruit for an energy revolution that will accomplish deep energy change.

These buildings offer the right scale, large enough but not too large (as skyscrapers would be), to be able to make them substantially energy independent with today's technology. Simply put with the combination of a modicum of grounds around the building, usually plenty of available space in the basement, a flat roof, and few shading problems, usually all or most of the available conditions are in place to accomplish a substantially feasible program of conversion to renewable technologies today.

The prevailing framework of policies and incentives focuses on energy efficiency before energy independence perversely  provides the indefinite postponement of energy independence with government subsidies. It promotes shallow energy change and in the process effectively prevents deep energy change from ever happening. For a building owner, if they are not planning for energy independence now, and develop long term plans to get there, they will never get there. Failing to plan definitely is planning to fail. To the extent that owners are following the current framework of energy efficiency oriented upgrades, they are digging their own graves, in the form of a collective next energy cirisis, moreover, this is often financed with long term money, ensuring that buildings will be under water again in the next energy crisis when it comes. Thus the present model is building the slums of tomorrow, and practicing capital destruction.

Any owners who have done nothing, and are still operating with the old steam boiler and hot water from a coil in the boiler, are actually potentially in better shape than the ones who have followed the prevailing energy efficiency regime, because every dollar they invested in making a fossil fuel infrastructure more efficient, becomes an obstacle for the economic justification of a switch to the energy independence program.

Very evidently, the administration is talking about "deep energy change,"  without much clarity that the current policy framework is an effective deterrent for its accomplishments. We can only hope that the administration can find ways to encourage a shift. There are a number of ways in which law makers and regulators can effectively make these changes possible, and even speed up adoption.

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