Twelve microturbines stand as one of the first examples of CHP operations in Manhattan.
When looking for a location with
plenty of prestige, a business can’t go wrong with an address on Avenue of the
Americas in Manhattan, NY. However, distributed energy from combined heat and
power (CHP) installations can make some locations even more prestigious than
others. Case in point: 1350 Avenue of the Americas, where a group of 12
microturbines stand as one of the first examples of CHP operations in
Manhattan’s highly competitive real estate market, and one of the most
successful projects of its kind.
The project had its official
launch at the beginning of 2005, when the building’s owners, Reckson Associates
Realty Corp., Long Island, NY, and Norwalk, CT-based, OfficePower LLC, announced
a long-term lease agreement for OfficePower to install, own, and operate a
720-kW distributed generation plant. The agreement with a client of Reckson’s
stature was a significant boost for OfficePower’s business concept.
Reckson Associates Realty Corp.
was a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT),
and one of the largest publicly traded developers of Class A office properties
in the New York Tri-State area. At that time, they had 85 properties comprised
of approximately 15.4 million square feet, either owned or controlled, or under
contract. In 2007, New York City, NY-based, SL Green Realty Corp. acquired
Reckson. It was another boost to the status of onsite power in New York, and
welcomed. Such projects were often met with many more complicated regulations
than the CHP-friendly atmosphere that New York is pushing these days.
Environmental Benefits and Simple
Economics
But at the time, OfficePower was
proposing an environmentally friendly microturbine and cogeneration project,
designed to meet a substantial portion of the building’s ongoing power and
thermal load requirements. According to Joel Wilson, CEO of OfficePower, the
benefits made it an easy decision for Reckson. “For a building’s owner, our
arrangement is very understandable and easy to embrace,” says Wilson. “The
paperwork doesn’t take long because we install, own, and operate these power
plants, and we sell the energy to the building. The more sophisticated building
owners in urban settings understand that the electric and energy needs of their
buildings will require new approaches for the issues coming in the future. We
help solve some of those issues.”
Among those issues, reliability
and economics take top priority. Especially when you’re hosting tenants such as:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, HarperCollins, Burberry, and Remy Martin Amerique. For
reliability, Capstone microturbines rated highly. For economics, a CHP
configuration allowed OfficePower to beat the prices offered by Con Edison.
To supply 35% (720 kW) of the
electrical load for 35 floors and 547,000 feet of office space, it takes 12
Capstone C60 High Pressure Dual Mode ICHP units (60-kW output each).
To start, moving the 12 units
onsite was simple. The installation took about 120 days, and there were very few
challenges with the onsite construction. “The design of Capstone products made
it easy to integrate into construction plans and easy to lift into the
building,” recalls Wilson.
The units weigh 2,471 pounds with
heat exchangers, and measure 83 inches high, 30 inches wide, and 77 inches deep.
According to Jim Crouse, executive vice-president of sales and marketing at
Capstone, the C60 doesn’t have vibration issues and is very quiet (70 decibels
at 33 feet). “Their weight and small footprint makes them ideal for urban
environments and rooftop installations,” adds Crouse.
Although their physical presence
was minimal, a rooftop installation was still enough to trouble building
inspectors that didn’t have much experience with onsite power, and all of the
city’s building code requirements. “The main challenge was that it was the first
installation of its kind in New York City,” says Wilson.
Con Edison demonstrated a much
nimbler approach than the NY Building Department, and Wilson credits the utility
with being very helpful during the interconnection process. “They understand
the microturbines and the inverter technology, so working with Con Ed here in
New York has been good,” he says.
Their enthusiasm proved valuable,
because the Capstones were designed to operate both in parallel with Con
Edison’s distribution network, or island mode (independent) during grid
outages.
Island Mode Protects Customers From Grid
Outage
Operating in island mode requires
a more complicated interconnection process, but it’s becoming an important
selling point for tenants. “An onsite power installation strengthens the
building’s energy infrastructure and provides backup resources,” says Wilson.
“If that building is competing with another that does not have such resources,
the tenant is going to opt for the one that does. Protection from power outages
resonates quite a deal with tenants, especially if you think about the kind of
customers in these buildings. They tend to have very high-end tenants
predominantly in the knowledge industry. The loss of power for even a short
period of time can cost them a lot of money.”
Emergencies aside, the turbines
typically operate in a peak shaving mode strategy to optimize the economics of
the building’s consumption. In winter months, the turbines can provide a
substantial reduction in heating costs. Each turbine has a Capstone heat
recovery module, and the system can supply up to 50% of the building’s heating
requirements. Heat output per unit is 430 MBtu per hour.
Low Maintenance in a
High-Rise
Along with performance, simple
maintenance was a key factor in choosing microturbines. “We have no lubricating
oil or coolant that needs to be serviced, so it reduces the impact on the
building and the environment,” says Crouse. The C60’s maintenance schedule calls
for a new air filter at 8,000 hours, an engine injector and igniter change at
20,000 hours, and a powerhead replacement after 40,000 hours of operation.
The turbines have performed with a
record of 99.4% availability, so it wasn’t a difficult decision to take
advantage of an opportunity to upgrade the units with a new Capstone model; the
C65. “The new Capstones allowed us to deploy our new proprietary control
system,” says Wilson. “The upgrade took about 10 hours and was absolutely
seamless.”
The control system is another
major selling point for building owners concerned with the impact a system has
on facility operations. It’s all done remotely with no need for onsite
personnel. OfficePower’s engineers monitor the system from their computers, and
the remote link allows them to operate the system from any location
worldwide.
With the benefits of sound
economics, reliability, and minimal impact to a building, it’s not surprising
that OfficePower has sold similar systems to other buildings in Manhattan. But
now there’s one more benefit that tenants want to see.
“The environmental aspects were
extremely important to us as a company,” says Wilson. “But now, what we’re doing
is better understood and embraced by the real estate community; this is a green
solution.”