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The man who air-conditioned Grand Central Terminal worries about climate change

By District Energy posted 10-04-2018 09:11

  

Amy Cortese, Crain's New York Business

Summary

When clients need to install air conditioning in landmarked buildings, such as Carnegie Hall, or investigate problems with the city's aging infrastructure, they call Charlie Copeland. He's the head of engineering consulting firm Goldman Copeland—fondly called Goco. For 50 years, he has specialized in the behind-the-scenes mechanics that keep New York's buildings operating in the modern world.

How did Goco come to specialize in energy innovation?

I'm a mechanical electrical engineer, so I mostly work on infrastructure. I did the country's largest energy program for the city of New York in the days of Mayor Koch. That involved designing strategies to save energy—such as changing lighting, HVAC and so forth—in almost all public buildings. I designed one of the early thermal solar collectors to capture heat and to heat water. In the past 15 or so years, we've done audits to reduce energy consumption for close to 50 million square feet of buildings.

Do you worry about climate change? 

I do. The new codes are very stringent, though. We used to calculate 2.5 watts of energy per square foot for older buildings; now code mandates 1 watt per square foot. All of our computers and appliances are Energy Star–compliant now. A lot of chillers in buildings we see today are working at less capacity than they did 10 to 15 years ago. But we can always do more.

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#News
#NewYork
#Steam
#EnergyEfficiency
#Infrastructure
#UnitedStates
#NorthAmerica
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