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National Grid, the main provider of gas for New York City, is spending $200 million dollars a year converting customers in New York City and Long Island from oil to gas and have a whole section of their website devoted to how easy and affordable it is to switch. A lot of buildings in New York have converted to gas.” “Our neighbors on both sides of this building have converted to gas and some other buildings on the block. “Some of the shareholders are very enthusiastic about converting to gas because it’s cheap and everyone is doing it,” said Lisa. $370,000 was well beyond what the building could afford but Lisa was hopefully they could raise funds through a crowdsourcing platform, a loan and maybe get more incentives from the city.īut then came all the additional consulting and permitting fees to drill through the sidewalk and under the building, which would be at least another $100,0000.Īnd after all that there was a chance the plan would have to be abandoned if the drilling process drifted toward Amsterdam Avenue where a major waterline is located. She was very excited about geothermal, a system of underground loops that use the consistent temperatures of the earth to heat and cool buildings, but it was prohibitively expensive.Ī contractor originally estimated that geothermal would cost $400,000 with NYSERDA offering a $30,000 incentive. She was told that the building’s roof wasn’t large enough for solar and the only company offering biodiesel is “reorganizing” their business model and currently not offering it.
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Lisa was excited about the potential to get her building off of fossil fuels for heating and did an exhaustive search of renewable energy solutions, but found insurmountable roadblocks with each option. The boiler in Lisa’s co-op building is over 35 years old and residents are looking to replace it. Like many New Yorkers, Lisa lives in an older building that uses a boiler that burns number 2 oil for heat. “And I keep running up against brick walls.” “I thought wow, great opportunity for a building to get cleaner,” said Lisa Harrison, a Sane Energy Core team member who has been trying to get her building on the Upper West Side in New York City to convert to a 100% renewable source for heating.