Last week, my family and I traveled to New York City. There are hundreds of things to do and see in the city that never sleeps. While we may not have seen or done them all, we did see some fantastic and spectacular sights. When asked what they thought of the city itself, my daughters responded using various adjectives including “big,” “bright,” and – my favorite – “lots of windows.” Without realizing it, they had hit on a very important characteristic of the city. With over 350 million square feet of office space and over 43 percent of buildings built before 1945, commercial space in New York City uses a lot of energy. It is big, it is bright and it does indeed have a lot of very old (and most likely drafty) windows. In other words, it is full of energy efficiency retrofit opportunities.
Continue reading