In the News
New York Property Leaders Debate Strategies to Protect Region’s Energy SystemBuildings.com
March 2, 2006
ConsumerPowerline roundtable reveals innovative strategies to help the state avoid shortages
Engaging in a sometimes-heated debate, nearly two dozen leading energy strategists from the New York metropolitan region's energy stakeholders - including commercial, retail, and residential property owners and managers; regulators; and consumer advocates - probed the strategies available to help protect Gotham's energy system and create a vision for a sustainable New York City energy market.
ConsumerPowerline, a strategic energy asset management firm, facilitated the conversation and hosted the event at the Morgan Stanley Executive Conference Center, where participants wrestled with a wide range of immediate, near-, and long-term energy issues that hold significant ramifications for New York's future economic stability. Key issues discussed included developing lease language that promotes and provides incentives for efficient-energy consumption, co-generation, distributed generation, steam-based chilling, and electricity curtailment.
According to experts in the region, New York City is projected to need an additional 6,000 megawatts of electricity by 2025 to sustain projected growth in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. The current electrical power generation and distribution system cannot support the projected growth unless some significant changes are instituted.
The roundtable kicked off with a status report from Gil Quiniones, chairman of Mayor Bloomberg's Task Force on Energy. Currently, New York City is in the second year of the Mayor's 6-year initiative/task force on energy policy for the city, a program that was designed to support businesses in the city and offers assistance in accessing a variety of energy incentives to lower consumption, raise conservation, and help avoid future energy crises. "This [roundtable] is a very important event, and a very important initiative from the perspective of not only New York's short-term electricity needs, but also our long-term electricity needs," says Gil Quiniones. "Imagine that if only 10 percent of the peak electrical requirement can be made flexible through peak load management or demand response programs, the equivalent of three large power plants' worth of electricity could be saved."