Dive Brief:
- Healthy-building technology company R-Zero is releasing software to help building operators comply with New York City’s building energy laws, including Local Law 97 on building emissions reductions.
- ProspectorNY analyzes building energy performance and aggregates and analyzes publicly available data collected and made available through city laws and regulations to help managers evaluate each of their properties’ efficiency and compliance status.
- "The high cost of energy in New York and the rate in which demand is outpacing supply is just a signal of what's coming nationwide,” Jennifer Nuckles, CEO and chairperson at R-Zero, said in the company’s Dec. 3 announcement.
Dive Insight:
New York City faces rising energy costs due in part to demand from data centers and the adoption of new technologies, R-Zero says. A lack of new supply to serve rising demand is also impacting consumer costs, according to the New York Independent System Operator. The city also is enforcing building energy standards through Local Law 97, which requires buildings to reduce emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Many of the city’s largest commercial properties could face millions in potential fines if they don’t comply, according to the release.
At the end of 2024, more than 90% of the city’s large buildings were estimated to be in compliance with 2024 emission limits set by LL97, according to an Urban Green Council analysis of the city’s 2023 energy and water use data. But the emission limits for the 2030-2034 compliance window are significantly lower, posing a major compliance challenge, the analysis indicates.
As the city moves toward these stricter 2030 limits, “we should expect to see buildings continue to implement energy efficiency, operations and maintenance best practices,” John Mandyck, CEO of the Urban Green Council, told Facilities Dive last year.
R-Zero says ProspectorNY can help owners avoid penalties by giving facility managers tools to analyze each building’s energy performance and identify opportunities for cost savings and energy improvement.
These “building-level performance insights … go far beyond standard benchmarking,” the company says, noting that software pulls from publicly available data and metrics, including Local Law 84 energy use reporting, Local Law 87 building system disclosures and Local Law 33 energy grades scores.
Translating energy data into performance indicators can help operators address inefficiencies, compliance risks and reporting requirements, with the goal of finding the improvements that will “yield the greatest financial and environmental impact and immediate ROI,” the company says.
