New York City Icon Goes Green
The Empire State Building has become New York City’s largest commercial purchaser of 100% renewable energy. The 2.85 million square-foot office building announced that it is purchasing 100% wind power from Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation’s leading competitive retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions. “It was a natural fit for us…
The Empire State Building has become New York City’s largest commercial purchaser of 100% renewable energy. The 2.85 million square-foot office building announced that it is purchasing 100% wind power from Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation’s leading competitive retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions.
“It was a natural fit for us to combine 100% clean energy with our nearly completed, ground breaking energy efficiency retrofit work,” said Anthony E. Malkin, president of Malkin Holdings, which supervises the Empire State Building. “Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents. Our program of innovation at the Empire State Building shows simple, replicable, non-proprietary steps for other landlords to follow to be more energy efficient, cleaner and greener.”
The iconic landmark has signed a two-year contract with Green Mountain to purchase nearly 55 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy annually, which will avoid nearly 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year. That is the equivalent of:
– Nearly every house in New York State turning off all their lights for a week
– Taking approximately 40 million fewer cab rides or
– Planting nearly 150,000 trees – – more than 6 times the number of trees in Central Park
The purchase is also more than double the amount of renewable power that any other commercial customer in New York City is currently buying.
Source: Green Mountain Energy