(G03) Breaking New Ground with Geothermal in Highrise Existing Building Decarbonization

Among the most difficult aspects of decarbonizing existing buildings is designing and implementing retrofits in cold-climate, highrise buildings. New York City exacerbates the complications: land and space are at a premium, electricity is expensive, and the little roof space for heat pumps competes with other mechanical equipment and amenities. Despite these demands, the project team for 520 Madison Avenue, a 1M SF commercial office building in Midtown Manhattan owned by Tishman Speyer, developed a decarbonization roadmap to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.

Developing a successful strategy requires incorporating ambitious targets from the ownership team within the building’s practical realities. Tishman Speyer’s team was interested in approaching the decarbonization roadmap to preserve 520 Madison’s Class A status for the next 40 years. Like many typical highrise existing commercial office buildings, 520 Madison has many decarbonization challenges – space constraints, high heating loads, long-term leases, minimal existing utility and maintenance costs, and new, competing buildings nearby. JB&B, the engineering firm leading the project, evaluated complex strategies that addressed these challenges by combining heat pumps, advanced heat recovery, thermal storage, and more. A highlight of the roadmap is the foundational strategy to implement a geothermal solution in an existing building in partnership with the solution provider Brightcore.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) recognized the major industry hurdles for highrise decarbonization and developed the Empire Building Challenge (EBC) program. The EBC, which supported the roadmap developed at 520 Madison, has fostered partnerships between real estate owners, building asset managers, consulting MEP and energy engineers, and solution providers to deploy the Resource Efficient Decarbonization approach developed for tall building decarbonization.

In this session, speakers from NYSERDA, Tishman Speyer, JB&B, and Brightcore, will share their contributions to this multi-disciplinary solution.