Energy

OneNYC is a comprehensive sustainability plan for New York City’s future.

Goal: Reduce energy consumption and make our energy systems cleaner and more reliable. To measure progress, we are tracking how our buildings are becoming more energy efficient as well as the extent to which our energy is becoming cleaner and more reliable.

Cleaner Energy

To determine whether energy in NYC is getting cleaner, we track the carbon intensity of our electricity supply using a measure called an emissions coefficient. This measure is the number of pounds of emissions - normalized in terms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) - divided by electricity use in megawatt hours. New York City is striving to lower its emissions coefficient by generating more electricity from cleaner fuels or renewable sources, improving the efficiency of its power plants, and upgrading its distribution network, so that less energy is wasted through grid loss.

Reliable Energy

To track the reliability of our electricity supply, we look at the state of repair of the infrastructure itself.

To measure whether the infrastructure is in a state of good repair, we use a System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), which measures the average number of power outages per 1000 customers.

Energy Efficiency

To track energy efficiency in NYC, we measure energy use across all buildings in NYC and divide by the NYC population. To separate the impact of improvements in energy efficiency from changes in weather - which inevitably impact energy use - we take a three year rolling average. New York City is working on ways to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, and to lower our per capita use of energy.