City rates its buildings for energy consumption

City Hall has a reputation as a prodigious producer of hot air. But the towering seat of government at Broad and Market Streets is not Philadelphia's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Perelman Building ranked as city government's top energy consumer, according to a new list compiled by the Mayor's Office of Sustainability.

City Hall ranked No. 6.

Twenty buildings in three sectors - offices and courts, prisons, and museums - consumed more than 60 percent of the energy used by 259 city buildings analyzed in the report.

The city released the report this week as a prelude to its new benchmarking law, which requires owners of commercial buildings greater than 50,000 square feet to report their energy use to the city for ranking.

"It's important we're leading by example," said Alex Dews, the policy and program manager for the Sustainability Office.

The city plans to release 2012 energy figures on June 30 for all commercial buildings, which is also the deadline for building owners to submit data from last year.

Dews said that 65 percent of property owners complied with the reporting requirement for the first year. They own more than 300 million square feet of commercial and institutional space.

The city's report, which is based on 2011 data, covered 9.9 million square feet of municipal space, much of it aging structures that are not very efficient.

Of the city buildings that can be compared to national averages, a mere 13 percent outperformed the national median. Sixty-two percent performed below the national median. About a quarter came in close to the median.

Dews and Adam Agalloco, the city's energy conservation coordinator, say the report provides a baseline for the city to evaluate building performance in the future, and to target efficiency investments more cost effectively.

The 14-page municipal benchmarking report can be viewed at www.phila.gov/benchmarking.

The benchmarking law will create a citywide database to provide buyers or tenants of large commercial real estate with comparative energy-consumption information. The objective is to elevate energy efficiency as a factor in the marketplace.

In Philadelphia, large buildings are estimated to be the source of about half of the city's carbon emissions.

Mayor Nutter on Wednesday also announced that Philadelphia had been selected to join the City Energy Project, a national, 10-city effort to boost efficiency in large commercial buildings. The project is an initiative by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Market Transformation.

9.9 million

Square feet of space in 259 city

buildings benchmarked for energy

use.

$50 million

City's energy costs from 2011 general fund.

140,000

Metric tons of greenhouse gases

emitted yearly by benchmarked city facilities.EndText