Energy conservation for New York City low-income housing: Final report

Technical Report · Sat Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:6255804

Commoner, B; Rodberg, L

A new computer program, EA-QUIP, which is a model of the energy characteristics of typical low-income multi-family buildings in New York City, and of their response to different energy conservation measures, has been developed by modifying CIRA (a single-family building computer model developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory). Experiments were conducted that generally confirm the CIRA assumptions on air infiltration. The program computes the amount of energy saved, the payback period for each selected measure, and the internal rate of return on the investment (based on an assumed discount rate). Twenty New York City low-income multifamily residences were audited, and EA-QUIP was used to analyze the resulting data and to identify a package of cost-effective energy conservation measures. About half the selected measures have payback periods of less than two years. The most cost-effective measures are applicable to all or nearly all the tested buildings. Fuel records for 14 of the audited buildings were compared with fuel usage computed by EA-QUIP. A statistical analysis of the results shows that if EA-QUIP is applied to a population of buildings similar to those audited, there is a 95% probability that the average error in estimating fuel usage will be 1.9% +- 11.7%. The data from the EA-QUIP analysis of the audited buildings have also been employed to prepare an Action Guide that can be used without recourse to a computer, to estimate a package of the most cost-effective energy conservation measures for a given building.

• Research Organization: Queens Coll., Flushing, NY (USA). Center for the Biology of Natural Systems; New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, New York (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6255804
• Report Number(s): NYSERDA-87-9; ON: TI87900986
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320105* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Building Services-- (1987-)
AIR INFILTRATION
AUDITS
BUILDINGS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ENERGY AUDITS
ENERGY CONSERVATION
FEDERAL REGION II
HUMAN POPULATIONS
LOW INCOME GROUPS
MINORITY GROUPS
NEW YORK
NEW YORK CITY
NORTH AMERICA
POPULATIONS
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
SIMULATION
USA