Bronx Apartment Owners Can Get Cleaner Efficient HVAC With No Upfront Costs

Owners of multi-family buildings in the Bronx can reduce their operating costs by replacing their oil heating systems with leased mini-splits without paying a dollar upfront.

A mini-split system provides heating and cooling via an air-source heat pump. The system runs on electricity and, thus, avoids carbon emissions compared with an oil heating system.

Here’s how the deal works: BlocPower, a Brooklyn company that has completed energy retrofit projects in more than 1,000 buildings, will install the system without cost to the building owner. The owner will then make fixed monthly lease payments to BlocPower.

The building owner will not have to pay to maintain the new system because BlocPower will provide the maintenance during the term of the lease. Because the mini-split systems are so efficient, building owners who take advantage of the offer will get the benefit of lower winter heating bills.

The length of the lease is flexible, enabling an owner to make their monthly payments lower than their monthly energy savings. The maintenance and energy savings free up building owners’ capital and borrowing power for other building improvements that can benefit their business and their tenants.

Tenants get the comfort of efficient, reliable heating and cooling. That makes the apartments more marketable.

“The lease enables apartment building owners to experience all the benefits of mini-split systems,” said Donnel Baird, the chief executive and co-founder of BlocPower. “They can reduce tenant complaints, lower operating costs, and increase the value of their buildings without paying any money upfront.”

“Switching customers from oil to high-efficiency electric heating is another step toward the clean energy future that the New York City and New York State environmental goals envision,” said Vicki Kuo, vice president, Energy Efficiency and Distributed Resource Planning, for Con Edison. “This program will have a direct and measurable impact on air quality in the Bronx.”

Mini-split systems extract energy from outdoor air, transfer it via a heat exchanger, and distribute the energy as heat inside the building. During the summer, the operation does the reverse and cools the inside of the building.

A mini-split system is quiet, eliminates the need for a boiler, and does not require duct work.

Apartment building owners can sign up to see if their building qualifies for a no-money-down mini-split system installation at www.blocpower.io or by calling (917) 524-6209.

Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues and $56 billion in assets. The utility delivers electricity, natural gas and steam to 3.5 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, N.Y. For financial, operations and customer service information, visit conEd.com. For energy efficiency information, visit coned.com/energyefficiency. Also, visit us on Twitter and Facebook.

BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based energy technology startup rapidly greening American cities. Since its founding in 2012, the company has completed energy projects in more than 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 to 40 percent on their energy bills each year. The company is backed by the world’s top investors, including Kapor Capital, one of Uber’s first investors, Andressen Horowitz, early investor in Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB and Lyft, and the former Chairman of Google.