Decarbonizing NY Buildings through Improved Data and Controls

This briefing by RMI discusses the role of Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) in decarbonizing large buildings in New York City. It highlights the gap between basic building management systems and advanced analytics needed to reduce emissions, particularly within tenant spaces, and emphasizes the importance of granular data for complying with mandates like Local Law 97.

• In New York City's large buildings, the primary energy consumers are space heating, plug loads, and domestic hot water. In office buildings specifically, 22 percent of energy is attributed to "other" (unknown or highly specialized) loads, followed by plug loads at 18 percent and lighting at 13 percent.
• Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) provide real-time monitoring and analytics that can be added to existing building management systems. Analysis from Berkeley Lab and New York's Real Time Energy Management (RTEM) program indicates that EMIS and associated efficiency adjustments have achieved a median energy consumption reduction of 8 percent.
• A significant barrier to building decarbonization is the lack of visibility into tenant spaces. While Local Law 88 requires all non-residential tenant spaces over a certain size in New York City to be submetered by 2025, current implementation is inconsistent. Data suggests that direct-metered multifamily buildings use less electricity per square foot than master-metered ones, and buildings with distributed air conditioning use less energy than those with central systems.
• The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a lack of control over energy use in unoccupied commercial buildings. For example, the Empire State Building's energy use only decreased by 28 percent despite being nearly 100 percent unoccupied, illustrating that operators often cannot drive energy reductions beyond 25 percent due to persistent loads in tenant spaces.
• New York City's Local Law 97 mandates that the city's largest 50,000 buildings reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It is estimated that over 75 percent of NYC buildings will need to invest in improvements by 2030 to avoid fines. Advanced EMIS can help owners track performance against these caps and verify the effectiveness of retrofits.

APA

RMI (2020). Decarbonizing NY Buildings through Improved Data and Controls. https://rmi.org/resources/decarbonizing-ny-buildings-through-improved-data-and-controls/

Chicago

RMI. Decarbonizing NY Buildings through Improved Data and Controls. 2020. https://rmi.org/resources/decarbonizing-ny-buildings-through-improved-data-and-controls/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Decarbonizing NY Buildings through Improved Data and Controls |date=22 July 2020 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/decarbonizing-ny-buildings-through-improved-data-and-controls/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2020decarbonizing, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Decarbonizing NY Buildings through Improved Data and Controls}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2020}, month = jul, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/decarbonizing-ny-buildings-through-improved-data-and-controls/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }