Manhattan School of Music Reduces Emissions Through Energy Savings

The school has saved $140,000 worth of energy in the year since major upgrades were completed

The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) has made significant strides with its energy efficiency measures, which have resulted in the school reducing its energy use by about 700,000 kilowatt hours — or $140,000 worth of energy — each year.

The savings came about through a partnership with Con Edison, which subsidized half of the $1 million investment required to bring the project to fruition. The project's initiatives focused on the installation of LED lighting and occupancy sensors in all parts of the school, as well as upgrades to the HVAC, humidity controls, and condenser systems.

The power saved each year as a result of the upgrades is equivalent to the amount of energy that 96 individual homes would consume.

"We knew what our benchmarks were, and we knew what our targets had to be, and we knew that we were not there yet," said Bryan Greaney, MSM's associate vice president of Facilities and Campus Safety.

"We're going down over 700,000 kilowatt hours per year throughout this building, which equates to about $140,000 annually," Greaney said. "It did end up working out much more favorably than we were originally expecting."

"Even if it's not a situation where you can do it all at once, finding those opportunities to do even smaller projects can reap really great benefits," Greaney said.