The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is a monumental investment in clean energy; AEG is eager to leverage its network and resources to build the partnerships necessary for winning IIJA grant proposals.
New York City’s building stock is about to set off a journey of electrification. However, this journey comes with countless obstacles. There are countless concerns regarding the reliability, technology, grid support and cost.
With help from representatives of the New York City Housing Authority, Jaros Baum & Bolles (JB&B), BlocPower and ConEdison, here are the most critical obstacles we identified at last quarter’s AEG New York 21Q2 Stakeholder Challenge on Buildings & Construction…
As a coastal city, New York faces multifaceted levels of risks from extreme weather events. Some parts of the city are still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, which highlighted the massive financial and social cost of these types of disasters, as well as the city’s under-preparedness for such events. With recent hurricanes causing extreme flooding, these critical infrastructure risks apply across the country and the globe.
In 2016, Washington, DC became a member of 100 Resilient Cities, joining a network of over 1,000 metropolises around the world dedicated to improving the resiliency of systems and infrastructure. A Resilience Strategy to prepare the District for future threats is being developed through a collaborative effort that will incorporate input from all stakeholders, in hopes of creating a comprehensive strategy for addressing a spectrum of threats.
New York Advanced Energy Group’s Q4 2017 Stakeholder Breakfast on the topic of Mobility and Transportation, co-hosted by Duane Morris, highlighted challenges and success stories of the city’s transportation sector. Speakers at the forefront of mobility and transportation, including John Markowitz of New York Power Authority, Thomas Abdallah and Nora Ostrovskaya of MTA, Mark Simon of NYC DOT, Tim Kruekniet of EVBox, and Nick Hill of ReachNow car sharing by BMW, led the discussion on policies, goals, and new technologies for the city of New York. The stakeholder member discussion tapped into collective thought, solutions, and innovative ideas for a more effective and sustainable transportation sector for New York City.
We closed out our inaugural season in Boston with a great line-up, bringing multiple perspectives to a challenge that requires an enormous amount of coordination. Speakers at the breakfast covered a wide range of related topics from how to get more ridership on public transit and address their needs, to how we decarbonize transportation, to how do we deal with the specific issues concerning EV deployments and charging infrastructure?
To kick off the breakfast and prepare everyone to think through the problems together, H.G. Chissell reminded us, with a very personal story, of the importance and urgency of tackling these pressing energy issues. This is an important reminder that these are not disconnected issues that are somewhere else to be solved when we can, but are here, connected to the way we live and affect us on a personal level.
The US burns about 19 million barrels of oil a day; roughly 70% of those barrels accommodate the transportation system. The consequences—such as environmental degradation and economic volatility, as well as contributing to the negative effects of climate change—pose a massive threat to different aspects of the country’s well-being.
The speed of change taking place in renewable energy generation, storage, and the technologies is closely associated with the internet of things (IoT). In New York, it has provided a space for smaller, yet positively disruptive technologies such as actively-monitored workstations and lighting fixtures to be paired with elevator and ventilation systems to reduce overall building energy consumption.
AEG has relied upon its members to frame future discussions by raising concerns and recommending solutions through one of the most vital tools at AEG’s disposal. Post event surveys are not only the key to unlocking essential resources for stakeholders, but also primary channels for the team to explore potential discussion topics and address specific challenges that may not occur in other cities.
Could there be a more perfect venue than the U.S. Green Building Council’s headquarters for hosting our Washington Advanced Energy (WAE) Q2 2017 Stakeholder Meeting on Smart Buildings & Grid Modernization? We could not think of one. Dave Witek (Senior Vice President, Finance, Operations & Administration) and the USGBC Team graciously hosted us in their LEED Platinum (2009) space that showcased what smart buildings can do.
On June 29th, 2017, Advanced Energy Group Fellow Tanner Kenney joined the New York Energy Consumers Council for a tour of the nearly-completed Cornell Tech campus at The Bloomberg Center on Roosevelt Island slated to open in August of 2017. On May 30th, 2017, the university announced its goal to achieve both net-zero and LEED Platinum statuses on the campus.
Welcome again to the Chicago office of Holland & Knight. I’m delighted again to welcome you all to the Chicago Advanced Energy Series Breakfast Meeting. I’m an energy partner with the firm based in our New York City office. As in the past, my Chicago colleague, Barb Adams, is here to welcome you and join in the conversations.
The Q1 2017 New York Advanced Energy Group (NYAE) Stakeholder Breakfast took place on Thursday, March 23rd at the offices of Duane Morris where discussion leaders and attendees examined the topics of microgrids and critical infrastructure in the context of City public policy, infrastructure, the private sector, and beyond.
The Q2 2017 Chicago Advanced Energy Group (CAE) Stakeholder Breakfast took place on Thursday, March 2nd at the offices of Holland & Knight where discussion leaders and attendees examined the topics of microgrids and critical infrastructure through the lens of Chicago public policy, utility providers, the private sector, and beyond.
On December 15, 2016, NYAE held its quarterly stakeholder breakfast, which covered the transportation sector from various perspectives. Phyllis Kessler of Duane Morris aptly put that the transportation sector has overtaken utilities as the number one producer greenhouse gases in the nation, bringing up issues ranging from the need to bulk up the electrical grid for vehicle charging stations to modernized and efficient transportation.
How do we move toward tangible action with regard to Transportation and Mobility in Washington D.C.? On December 8th, 2016, energy industry experts participated in the Stakeholder Breakfast to discuss the ways in which participation in data gathering, problem-framing in the transportation industry and EVs, and the generation of reliable power could provide a deliverable product through scaling existing initiatives and better incentivizing end-usage.
