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Dive Brief:
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New York state is offering up to $750,000 in state cost-sharing funding for building and campus decarbonization efforts that use ground-source heat pumps, waste heat recovery, thermal energy storage and other low-emissions technologies. Applications are due July 31.
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The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Large-Scale Thermal program encourages property owners to pursue high-efficiency, “grid-friendly” electrification projects, NYSERDA Program Manager Sue Dougherty said in a presentation at the International District Energy Association annual conference earlier this month.
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The $10 million program is open to systems that provide heating, cooling and hot water to single buildings with at least 100,000 square feet of conditioned space or multibuilding campuses with at least 250,000 conditioned square feet, NYSERDA says.
Dive Insight:
State funding opportunities like the Large-Scale Thermal program are key to New York’s efforts to significantly reduce the environmental impact of its roughly 6 million buildings in the coming decades, Dougherty said.
The state wants 85% of its buildings to use clean heating technologies like heat pumps and thermal energy networks by 2050, the same year its statutory net-zero statewide GHG emissions target kicks in.
“We’re not going to do all *6 million buildings, and we really don’t have to,” Dougherty said. “But we will need to do a significant number, and our solutions will need to address existing, older buildings and newer buildings getting built [today].”
The Large-Scale Thermal program is accepting applications for its third funding round through July. Successful applicants will receive state funding equal to 50% of total project design costs, with maximum funding up to $300,000 for new construction and $750,000 for existing buildings.
The project economics tend to work best for existing facilities with aging heating and cooling infrastructure, new construction and larger buildings or campuses that can achieve “economies of scale,” Dougherty said.
The program considers a wide range of high-efficiency, low-emissions heating and cooling technologies, Dougherty said. These include, but are not limited to, heat pumps that tap into ground, air and surface water resources; building and wastewater heat recovery systems; solar thermal systems; and thermal energy storage systems.
Story Continues“We are looking for opportunities to help [building owners] accomplish a goal, not prescribing how it’s done,” she said.
NYSERDA is particularly interested in “grid-friendly” projects that can shift electric loads away from periods of peak demand by participating in utility demand response programs or using on-site thermal energy storage, Dougherty added.
“We are hoping we can continue to increase the growth of thermal storage and other solutions that can take strain off the grid,” she said.
This latest effort complements prior state-led initiatives to decarbonize facilities, campuses and neighborhoods.
Beginning in 2021, for example, the Community Heat Pump Systems program funded feasibility studies, design phases or construction for thermal energy networks at more than 50 sites across New York. Dougherty called out several in her presentation, including a ground-source heat pump system at a pair of new residential towers in Brooklyn, a feasibility study to replace a district steam loop with an ambient-temperature water loop and wastewater heat recovery system at an 18-building housing cooperative in the Bronx, and a feasibility study to swap a gas-fired steam system and distributed air-cooled chillers for a lower-temperature water loop on part of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station’s campus.
The New York City projects’ space-constrained sites made them useful references for property owners or developers considering thermal energy systems in similarly dense urban environments, Dougherty said. The Brooklyn project is an excellent reference for geothermal borefield design on tight construction sites, she said. A NYSERDA project narrative indicates the Bronx proposal would boost system efficiency by tapping complementary heating and cooling loads from a nearby nursing home, community center and mixed-use commercial building.
The Cornell University project shows facility decarbonization doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing endeavor, Dougherty said. The project area will initially retain a gas-fired boiler for peak heating season, in part because the network will serve a research greenhouse that needs to maintain a constant year-round temperature, she said.
“We understand that this is a transition,” Dougherty said. “We don't expect projects to come to us and tell us they’re going to electrify everything tomorrow.”
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