Fucci said that a reliable supply of energy is a prerequisite to every development project and should be taken into account in the earliest stages of the planning process. "A considerable effort needs to be made to reduce the amount of energy they consume," he said. "More fundamentally, real estate is an important part of the solution because every commercial and residential facility is potentially a small power plant--and this is the real alternative to the central generation model."

Some measures that reduce the amount of electricity buildings and facilities use include:

• Demand Side Management/Smart Metering: When there is the most stress on the central distribution grid, usually on the hottest summer days, individual facilities can use less electricity or produce more of their own, such as shutting down the air conditioning system for say 20 minutes an hour, or shutting down one of more elevators in buildings with large elevator banks.
• Performance Contracting/Reducing Energy Use in Existing Buildings: This is the most least expensive and most direct way to reduce greenhouse gases, given the dominant role buildings play in the energy usage profile in the US, Fucci says.
• Combined Heat and Power/Cogeneration: This refers to power generation equipment, usually fired by natural gas, whose waste heat is captured to make thermal energy--steam or hot water--to be used by the host facility. Fucci explained that these are in wider use in industrial facilities, and are virtually non-existent in single-family residences.
• Fuel Cells: Although they are still far more expensive than most other types of power, most applications rely on government incentives and subsidies for their instillation. Fuel Cells use an emissions-free chemical process to make electricity, even though they do need some sort of fuel to run.
• Solar Energy: By means of photovoltaic panels on buildings and residences, this application has a high up front cost compared to conventional sources and even most other alternative sources.
• Biomass: This application is created by agriculture and by-products of industrial processes--such as sawmills--which create a lot of biomass that is wasted in many cases. They can be burned in power plants, either in dedicated stations or mixed with other fuels. Facility owners can also use biomass boilers.

Fucci summed up his discussion by explaining that what used to be a fairly simple process with regard to electricity and natural gas, is "now presenting real estate developers with many choices that require weighing complex technological, legal and risk factors." Fucci added that "One can think of every building, whether it is new or old, as an opportunity to make a difference towards reducing those emissions and the various stakeholders can resolve to make a concentrated effort to turn that opportunity into reality."