Council’s A/C bill will cost too much

The City Council is considering a well-intentioned, but horribly misguided, bill to make air conditioning mandatory in nearly every room of all rental and cooperative housing in New York City. Intro 994 requires that “each living room in each dwelling unit” be equipped with “a cooling and dehumidification system capable of maintaining an indoor temperature of 78 degrees Fahrenheit at 50 percent relative humidity” when the outdoor temperature is 82 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

This may seem reasonable, but it will strain our fragile housing market and power grid beyond the breaking point and result in increased electricity and housing costs.

New York City’s power grid is strained by current demand. In their most recent reliability assessment, New York State’s power producers state: “New York State’s electricity system faces an era of profound reliability challenges. » Over the next five years, New York State will face a potential shortfall of 4,000 megawatts of electricity. This represents approximately 15 to 20 percent of the electricity demand used by New York State on a summer day.

New York’s electricity generation infrastructure is the oldest in the country and increasingly dependent on fossil fuels. The electricity distribution system faces significant reliability issues, high costs, and continued reliance on dirty energy sources. Intro 994 exacerbates these problems.

Intro 994 will significantly increase New York State’s demand for electricity – energy the state does not currently have and is unlikely to obtain anytime soon. About 10% of the city’s rental housing stock does not have air conditioning, representing about 150 million square feet of real estate. The bill specifically requires that the “living rooms” of each apartment be cooled to 78 degrees Fahrenheit, which likely means that all habitable areas be cooled, including bedrooms.

While many apartments have air conditioning, far fewer have it in every room, and maintaining a temperature of 78 degrees Fahrenheit when temperatures reach 95 degrees requires an enormous amount of energy. Intro 994 would add cooling needs for about 300 million square feet of housing, resulting in 600 megawatts of power, an increase of about 7 percent in the amount of electricity the city uses on a summer day. Intro 994 will increase New York’s carbon emissions by 100,000 tons per year, the equivalent of the emissions of 20,000 homes.

If Intro 994 passes, summer heat waves could push New York’s power grid to the breaking point. Increased cooling demand would force the city to rely on its oldest and dirtiest power plants, driving up energy costs for everyone. When demand increases, utility bills soar – and the risk of power outages increases. Power outages aren’t just inconvenient; they are dangerous. Subways, elevators and traffic lights stop working; Police, fire and emergency services are overwhelmed. Worse, dirty power plants are already concentrated in communities with high rates of respiratory illness.

Intro 994 emphasizes our already fragile housing market and exacerbates the current housing crisis. Installing hundreds of thousands of air conditioning units and upgrading electrical systems to meet increased electricity demand will impose significant costs on property owners, making housing more expensive and scarce. Retrofitting older buildings with central air conditioning systems is often prohibitively expensive, forcing many people to rely on less efficient window air conditioning units. These units compromise the building envelope, allow air leaks and increase heating energy consumption and costs.

The burden of this upgrade will fall primarily on older rental and co-op buildings that do not have existing central air conditioning systems. Cash-strapped rental properties will fall further into disrepair, and co-op members will see their maintenance and common charges increase. And, more worryingly, all New Yorkers will see their electricity bills rise as we consume more energy from expensive, less sustainable sources.

New York’s housing shortage is only made worse by policies that increase the cost of existing housing and drive up utility rates. Additionally, many of these buildings struggle to comply with Local Law 97 which requires buildings to reduce their carbon emissions. Adding a large electrical load makes compliance difficult and will result in higher fines for buildings.

New York City and State are implementing an ambitious energy and climate policy to help reduce carbon emissions. Intro 994 is in direct conflict with these goals and undermines progress toward their achievement. Protecting people from heat-related illness is admirable, but destroying our power grid, increasing carbon emissions, raising utility prices, and making housing less affordable is not the right path forward.

Skalaski is the co-chair and Baran is the executive director of the New York Energy Consumers Council.