In this special episode of the REIT Report, part of an ongoing series, “Building Resilience,” covering issues facing the REIT industry as it remains focused on investing for the long term, Michael Reed, senior director of building transformation at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), joins Nareit’s Jessica Long, senior vice president of environmental stewardship and sustainability. They discuss the organization’s experience working with the commercial real estate community to advance energy efficiency, delivering benefits to the energy system more broadly, including reliability and resilience.
Reed shares how NYSERDA has evolved in the 50 years since it was founded as the state’s atomic energy agency in the 1970s. “The mission of having energy work for, and benefit, New Yorkers, making that energy as reliable and affordable as possible, has not wavered. The challenges as we look towards the future intersect with this conversation on resilience because our climate in New York and across the world is getting hotter. There’s more moisture in the air, leading to extreme weather events, but also making the job of operating buildings harder.”
“As the state’s primary energy agency, we have a whole group that’s focused on supporting New York State in understanding what the future of our energy system is going to look like, identify and proactively address the risks associated with maintaining a safe, reliable, and affordable set of energy systems, and just supporting the state across all of the different functions associated with achieving those goals.”
Long and Reed discuss how local building regulations focused on increased comfort, resilience, and health priorities can sometimes conflict with climate and energy goals. “That’s why energy efficiency plays such an important role, right? Because energy efficiency delivers benefits within the four walls of the building, but it also delivers significant benefits to the energy system more broadly. When reducing the load of a given end use or space, we are reducing the total cost of energy to that occupant, but are also smoothing out how much total energy is required from the energy system at any given point in time.”
“There’s a lot of sophisticated strategies that Nareit members and their peers are currently deploying that help the building manage its individual peak, but it’s also being a good grid citizen, because at the end of the day, they understand they’re bearing a significant cost of this system as some of the largest energy users in a given area.”
Reed shares how NYSERDA co-led with the Department of Environmental Conservation, the state’s first extreme heat action plan and how NYSERDA runs workforce development programs and the natural carbon solutions program , which are supporting innovative green cooling technologies.
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