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Buildings Need to Generate Energy Onsite

NEW YORK CITY-Panelists say central, grid-supplied energy relies on inefficient infrastructures that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

By Marita Thomas | Updated on March 20, 2008

NEW YORK CITY-Real estate portfolios were depicted as the central hub for greenhouse gas emissions during the PLI (Practicing Law Institute) Green Real Estate Summit, held here recently and headed by Ellen Sinreich of Green Edge LLC. As the nexus for such emissions, buildings, land-use projects and real estate portfolios are the primary drivers of anthropogenic climate change, that is climate change derived from human activity, according to Christopher Pyle of CTG Energetics Inc.

Agreeing that buildings are the biggest consumers of energy in the US, Frederick Fucci, a partner in the locally based law firm of Arnold & Porter LLP, urged developers to seek alternative sources of energy. Alternative energy, he explained, refers to onsite or local generation of electric or thermal energy, either through systems using natural gas, fuel cells, solar energy or biomass. Although they are renewable, wind, hydro and tidal systems are not generally available in site-specific urban or suburban locations, he noted.

Conventional energy refers to “central generation” or grid-supplied electricity and natural gas, plus back-up diesel generators for emergency power, he explained. “Every time you flick the switch today in most places in the US, it means that you are tapping into a huge infrastructure that, in the end, relies on highly polluting, inefficient and outmoded technology. …It is the greatest single contribution to the global warming problem in the US and, were it not for China and its even heavier reliance on coal, the world.” He urged that a reliable supply of energy be taken into account at the earliest stage of the real estate planning process.

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