Improving boiler efficiency in NYC

Technology and “disruption” don’t always have the best connotations, but according to this article from Canary Media, software from a company called Parity is saving apartment buildings serious money, while also reducing electricity and carbon emissions. Their software optimizes how the building-wide heating and air-conditioning systems run.

The [apartment management] company partnered with startup Parity in 2022 to install indoor temperature sensors across three of its buildings in Midtown Manhattan, and to hook up the buildings’ heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning controls to a digital platform created by Parity. The software takes in data from the sensors, weather forecasts, and other inputs, and uses it to minimize gas and electricity consumption while ensuring individual apartments don’t get too hot or too cold.

The project cost AvalonBay about $280,000 to implement in the three buildings but has saved more than $540,000 in utility costs so far, according to the companies — more than double its initial targets.

There’s a lot of interesting detail in the article about the challenges of managing central heating and cooling without running afoul of what tenants want, and it sounds as if this smarter system would actually improve that in many cases.

As the article points out, gas boilers need to go away entirely, both because we need to stop burning things for heat and because regulations will (eventually) require it. Until then, these kinds of efficiencies can make a big difference.