Urban Energy Retrofits – Heat Pumps are Better, Sustainable

Huge World Wide Demand for Urban Energy Retrofits with Heat Pumps.

above image: My Zero Energy Retrofit Beats my 401(k) “The return on investment is over double the return on my retirement investments this year.”

Urban Energy Retrofits

Let’s stop talking about it! >>> Let’s do it!
What is “Urban Retrofit”?

Energy and water efficiency retrofits are upgrades, improvements to your building that reduce energy use and improve how your building operates. Retrofit projects range from simple; like updating the lighting in your common area to large projects; like replacing your boiler with a heat pump that both heats and cools your living space.

What is a Heat Pump?

in 2024 in the UK charged in UK£ pounds here were the costs. The demand for solor and heat pumps increases yearly…..so the price for Solar Panels with a Heat Pump cooling and heating system has already gone down.

Big Demand
Everyone is meeting, conferring, zooming about
“the climate problems of cities”,
But you don’t hear of solutions very often….especially solutions that will support ALL the people who live in urban areas….. “Urban Retrofits” is one solution that every community, worldwide needs to help us harmonize with planet Earth. Can your business get on-board?

Better Buildings, Block by Block
Reduce utility bills and improve housing quality through energy and water retrofits for your building. << This is what New York City is doing!
If New York can do it….all communities can!

Great start for every community on planet Earth!

---

Urban Energy Retrofits

Reversing Climate Change, One Building At A Time

October 2020 – When Donnel Baird was in his twenties, he had twin passions, and he didn’t want to choose between them. “I vowed that I was going to try to combine my passion for Black Civil Rights with trying to do something about Climate Change,” he says.

During his last semester at Columbia Business School, Baird launched BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based technology company.^[9] BlocPowers investors include Goldman Sachs, Kapor Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz.^[4] BlocPower achieved $93mm in revenue in 2023. Baird stepped down as CEO in 2024.

He’s doing it now, with a company that he founded called BlocPower. He’s attacking one of the seemingly intractable sources of America’s greenhouse emissions: old residential buildings. And he’s focusing on neighborhoods that don’t have a lot of money to invest.

Baird wants to show me how it’s done. So we meet in New York City, in front of a classic Brooklyn brownstone in the Crown Heights neighborhood. “It’s still largely African American, West Indian,” Baird says of the building’s residents.

The building is four stories tall, with two apartments on each floor. It’s a cooperative that’s legally designated as affordable housing. BlocPower looked at this building and saw a business opportunity.

“We thought that they were wasting a lot of money paying for natural gas, which they were using for heating; also to heat their hot water,” he says.

Baird’s company went to the people who live here, the coop owners, with a proposal. BlocPower offered to manage the building’s heating and cooling. The company would install new equipment, and put solar panels on the roof. “Solar panels aren’t just for rich people, or for White people. They’re for everybody,” Baird says.

The best part: The residents wouldn’t have to pay anything up-front. In fact, BlocPower promised that their bills would go down. And they’d be helping the planet, with lower greenhouse emissions.

Shaughn Dolcy, who lives in the building, was sold. “It’s the only way to go,” he says. “There’s no other way.” He says most of his neighbors liked it, too. “I would say 90 percent” of them, he says. “You maybe had, like, one particular family, they weren’t really interested in getting anything progressive or new. They were on-board at the end of the day, though.”

So BlocPower went to work. The company tore out the gas-burning boiler in the basement and installed a set of efficient electric-powered heat pumps instead. Heat pumps capture heat and move it from one space to another, in either direction: during winter they heat a home, and in summer they cool it. BlocPower put up the solar panels, elevated high enough that people still can gather for parties underneath them.

“The result is, they save tens of thousands of dollars a year on their energy costs,” Baird says. Yet they’re still paying enough that BlocPower can earn back its investment. The new equipment saves that much money.

BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based energy technology startup rapidly greening American cities. Since its founding in 2012, the company has completed energy projects in nearly 1,000 buildings and delivers results ahead of schedule and under budget. BlocPower utilizes its proprietary software for analysis, leasing, project management, and monitoring of urban clean energy projects and its customers are saving 20-40% on their energy bills each year. 

The BlocPower Lease Benefits
No money down. No loan.
Low, predictable monthly payments.
15-year performance guarantee.
Regular maintenance included in lease.
No lien on building.

This is the way to go, World!

and maybe a “ZERO electric bill” from the grid!…………………..

You can do it anywhere in the World! There is no excuse.

---

Urban Energy Retrofits

Huge World Wide Demand for Urban Energy Retrofits!
Lots of room for small businesses in Heat Pumps.
Can your business be part of this?

A Closer Look at Aspects of Energy
Retrofit Financing

HEAT PUMPs could satisfy 90% of Global heating and cooling

with a lower carbon footprint than gas-fired condensing boilers –  the International Energy Agency

Electric heat pumps still meet no more than 5% of heating needs in buildings globally, yet they could supply more than 90% of global space and water heating with lower CO₂ emissions (even when the upstream carbon intensity of electricity is taken into account) than condensing gas boiler technology (which typically operates at 92-95% efficiency).

Why heat pumps are a technology for the future from the IEA, Technology Collaboration Programme

Sustainable energy systems of the future will rely on two major principles: efficient end-use and efficient use of renewables. In this scenario, the heat pump is a brilliant invention which is beautifully adaptable for a multitude of applications relating to both efficient end-use and renewably supply. The energy source used by a heat pump is renewable energy from ground, air, water and waste heat sources.

… According to the International Energy Agency, IEA, the global CO₂ emissions must be reduced by more than one half in comparison with the 2015 levels in order to limit the increase in global temperature. Cities are at the heart of the decarbonisation effort. The challenge is to achieve this reduction while at the same time energy demand is rising from an increasing number of both residential and commercial
buildings. This challenge can be met by the heat pump technology, employing it in a wide range of applications in terms of heating, cooling and air conditioning. 

Heat pumps are a suitable solution for retrofit buildings. Therefore, heat pumps have a large potential in contributing to the reduction of global CO₂ emissions.

Efficiency and heat pumping application
There are a number of factors that will affect the efficiency of a heat pump. Major improvements in the efficiency of heat pump systems have been achieved through developments in the fields of heat exchangers, compressors, motors, motor drives and controls. Currently, the best opportunities for improving efficiency are in optimizing the sources and sinks, minimizing auxiliary drive powers and optimizing the temperature and capacity controls. Therefore, when choosing a heat pump and the related sources and sinks, the following things have to be considered:
Climate – The indoor and outdoor climates and the indoor heat loads will decide the annual heating and cooling demand and maximum peak loads;
Temperature – The temperatures of the heat source and distribution systems for heating and cooling affect the COP and the capacity of the heat pump;
Auxiliary equipment – Energy consuming auxiliary equipment such as pumps, fans and supplementary heat for bivalent systems could have a much larger impact on system efficiency than is commonly perceived;
Technology – System design and selection of components such as motors, compressors and heat exchangers have a decisive influence on the operating characteristics of the heat pump;
Size – Sizing of the heat pump and its components in relation to the heat demand will affect energy coverage and part-load operation;
Control system – The heat pump control system will affect how closely supply and demand for heating and cooling will match and how closely the actual operating temperatures will be to the theoretically optimal temperatures.

Natural refrigerants
Refrigerants based on substances that exist naturally in the environment are called natural refrigerants. These refrigerants generally have a low impact on the global environment, with both Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) at a zero or close-to-zero level. Therefore, these are viable options for long-term replacement of the synthetic CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs. However, in some applications they are related to other risks or challenges that must be handled. Commonly used natural refrigerants today are ammonia (NH3), hydrocarbons (HCs), carbon dioxide (CO₂), air and water.

Welcome to the Technology Collaboration Programme on Heat Pumping Technologies by IEA (HPT TCP), and Heat Pump Centre. Heat Pump Centre is an international information service for heat pumping technologies, applications and markets. The goal is to accelerate the implementation of heat pumps and related heat pumping technologies, including air conditioning and refrigeration.

---

ALL ABOUT LOCAL LAW 97
and
$20B ENERGY RETROFIT MARKET

---

Retrofit cuts energy use by 36 percent at Lisbon’s City Hall

and grid electricity usage by half……………….

Retrofit cuts energy use by 36 percent at Lisbon’s City Hall
Energy consumption at Lisbon’s historic City Hall has reduced by 36% through what has been hailed as the first deep energy-efficiency retrofit for a heritage building in Portugal. The achievement could pave the way for replication in other cities.

Interventions to reduce energy usage included replacing the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, switching to LED lighting, installing solar panels and deploying advanced energy management tools.

Lisbon’s City Hall, which was completed in 1880 and is home to the Municipal Chamber of Lisbon, the Mayor and over 100 staff, was among the five most energy-consuming buildings owned by the municipality. …

…New data from the building retrofit initiative shows that between June 2019 and February 2020, energy consumption at City Hall was reduced by 36 percent (in killowatt-hours/KwH), and electricity usage from the grid decreased by half, from 500 megawatts in 2016 to less than 250 megawatts in 2019. On average, 90 percent of energy from solar generation was used within City Hall.

---

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit research organization, develops policies to reduce energy waste and combat climate change.  The ACEEE is turning today’s energy challenges into opportunities for stronger communities, a more resilient economy, and a livable climate for all.
Energy efficiency is not just a technical solution; it’s a powerful lever for reducing emissions, lowering costs, and improving lives. We are committed to ensuring the benefits of the clean energy transition reach those who need it most, including renters, low-income households, and historically underserved communities.
We have cut U.S. energy use in half relative to the economy’s size and are saving more than $2,000 per capita in energy bills annually. Efficiency saves more energy each year than America uses from any other single energy resource, including oil, natural gas, and coal.

---

What to do with your old boiler

How to remove your old boiler
How to get rid of your old boiler
Can I take my old boiler to the tip?
Can I sell my old boiler for scrap? [Remember other wastes too!]

---

Trash Can Willys specializes in furnace removals coming out of basements.

Our personnel are well trained and equipped to handle any furnace removal with grace and efficiency. We have successfully removed now over 136 heavy furnaces from customers basements during the course of 8 years in business.

We carry all needed insurances so our crew and your home are covered if something should go wrong. Out of 130+ furnace removals we have had one accident, a chipped stair. Thats a pretty good record. You can have peace of mind when having Trash Can Willys handle your furnace removal.

We always offer upfront pricing that we guarantee to be the lowest price you will find, we beat any written estimate by a minimum of 10%. We also offer substantial discounts if we can recycle, repurpose, or resell your unwanted items giving true meaning to the old saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” ?
Providing junk removal services and junk hauling to New Hampshire and Massachusetts

---

Water Heater Tank Removal & Furnace Disposal Services.

Water heater tanks, furnaces, and boilers are in a special class of their own. The same goes for air-conditioning, duct work, heck, anything in the heating and cooling of your home or business, it’s bound to break or need replacing.

Awkward, heavy, usually leaking something, and always sure to have sharp corners ready to cut, tear, and damage anything in its path.

This is why you want MrJunk’s expert 5-star rated crew to come haul these items away. From commercial buildings like offices and schools with multiple tanks and furnaces, to the individual home owner, these systems are not built to last forever, so when they go, we need to get rid of them.

MrJunk does all the loading, lifting, clean up, and proper recycling disposal for you. We will show up on your time, give a free fair quote for removal, and be out of your way before you know it.

---

If New York City has figured it out….all communities can!

Urban Energy Retrofits

posts about wind, waves and Retrofits / emissions renovations…..

I Say The Future Is VERTICAL Axis Wind Turbines!
WIND POWER Back Down To Earth – VAWT

Shipping’s Carbon Footprint – Your Small Business >> Your Vote
Wave Power Is Very Very “Energy Dense”!
Climate Retrofits On Land Or At Sea

Urban Energy Retrofits For Existing Buildings
CLEAN AIR – IS, ALREADY – IN OUR GRASP!