NJ Office To Produce On-Site Electric Power

The on-site system will provide approximately half of the electricity for the office complex, an option to provide an increased level of security for tenants, and additional resources for heating and cooling the property. As with all RealEnergy systems, the remainder of the electricity necessary to operate the facility and businesses in the office complex will continue to come from the local utility company.

On-site power generation is fast becoming a preferred alternative for commercial and corporate building owners. Since on-site generation also provides the option of back-up power in the event of a blackout, property owners can offer tenants greater reliability by reducing their exposure to transmission failures.

“The primary motivation is to provide a revenue stream, reduce overall operating costs, and more recently to address growing concerns over security issues that can result from being totally dependent on the public power grid,” said Alan Krusi, RealEnergy’s CEO. He added that this is his firm’s first venture in the Northeast, RealEnergy currently has 19 systems in the design/engineering phase and another 17 systems currently operating around the US.

“While our programs to increase distributed generation systems began in the west, we think that the higher concentration of commercial buildings in the east, along with greater extremes in climate and other demand variables, will accelerate our installations on the East Coast at a much higher velocity,” said Krusi.

The on-site generation system at Park 80 West is the second such on-site system RealEnergy has provided for national real estate portfolio owner Transwestern Investment Company. Based in Chicago, Transwestern manages a national portfolio of commercial real estate including office, retail and multi-family properties valued at over $3 billion.

“As building owners, we believe that installing on-site power systems is a prudent thing to do to protect our investment and better serve our tenants. By having energy produced on-site we can offer guaranteed power for critical operations, including highly sensitive technology systems, and with lower cost generation techniques, reduce operating costs at the same time,” said Randy Bessolo, Managing Director of Transwestern.

RealEnergy’s on-site power system at the Park 80 West commercial complex is large enough to provide the equivalent power needs for 1100 average-sized homes. The system will utilize three natural gas internal combustion engines monitored remotely by RealEnergy via a private web network and the company’s proprietary software systems. The power system generates virtually no pollution and “waste heat” is reused to generate steam for heating and cooling.

RealEnergyÂ’s clients include: The State of California, AEW, CalPERS, Lend Lease, RREEF, Starwood Capital, Transwestern, Arden Realty, DivcoWest, Layton-Belling & Associates, Trammell Crow, KOR Group, Southwest Value Partners, and Walton Street.

RealEnergy Chairman, Daniel Cashdan said that producing power through on-site generation is a concept the President’s National Energy Policy cites as a valuable tool in solving the energy transmission and supply problems occurring in the U.S. today. “The RealEnergy business model was designed to address energy supply and reliability issues overall. Although we began in California, we are obviously pleased with the growing acceptance of distributed generation across the whole of North America,” said Cashdan.