Triboro Ecodistrict Energy Baseline Study

The Triboro Ecodistrict set a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which requires aggressive energy conservation, renewable energy production, and resilience measures. The Triboro Energy Baseline Study helps the communities better understand residential energy consumption in their Boroughs, which accounts for roughly one-third of their community-wide carbon emissions.

The evolveEA led Study includes a residential building stock analysis, which was focused on six building characteristics including dwelling type, square footage, age, condition, presence of heating and air conditioning systems, and exterior finish. Informed by this analysis, the consultant team developed building energy typologies and worked with the Green Building Alliance and the utility companies to acquire actual residential energy consumption data from 2017, organized based on the typologies. The data was analyzed to understand trends in energy consumption and includes the team’s initial hypothesis, findings, and energy conservation recommendations.

In addition to the residential building stock and utility data analyses, the team, in collaboration with Sarah SanGiovanni, issued a resident survey that included questions about the residents’ homes, energy use, energy costs, alternative energy and sustainability, and demographic information.

Informed by the results of the mapping, analysis, and survey, the report concludes with a series of recommendations to reduce residential energy consumption. Three of these recommendations were modeled to understand the degree of impact that conservation, solarization, and resilience would have on community-wide energy consumption.