Last winter was the coldest New York City has seen in more than a decade. Central Park averaged 31.9 degrees from late December through mid-March, 4.3 degrees below normal and the coldest since the winter of 2014-2015. Buildings responded the way they always do in a deep freeze: boilers ran harder, setpoints crept up, and complaints were answered with more heat.
That response is understandable, but it is worth looking at what it did to the numbers. In several recent conversations with building boards about ENERGY STAR scores that dropped year over year, a common thread was heating operations. Setpoints had been raised a degree or two to quiet complaints, or boilers were left on bypass to push heat into the building.
A degree or two sounds trivial, but commonly cited public guidance puts the impact at roughly 1 to 3 percent of heating energy per degree. Add a boiler on bypass, and a 5 to 10 percent increase in heating-season usage is easy to reach.
Consider a 100,000 square foot building that uses 40,000 therms of gas in its four coldest months. A 5 percent increase is 2,000 additional therms, and a 10 percent increase is 4,000. At an assumed $2 per therm, that is $4,000 to $8,000 in extra gas cost.
The therms also carry emissions. Under Local Law 97, natural gas is counted at 0.005311 metric tons of CO2e per therm, so 2,000 to 4,000 therms adds roughly 11 to 21 tons. At $268 per ton, a building at or over its emissions limit would owe another $2,850 to $5,700 in penalties. LL97 emissions are based on actual metered consumption with no weather adjustment, so a cold winter counts in full. Combined with the gas cost, one small operational habit can mean roughly $6,850 to $13,700.
ENERGY STAR scores work differently. Portfolio Manager accounts for weather by comparing your building’s actual energy use to what it would be predicted to use, so a cold winter alone should not pull a score down. What does is consumption that grows faster than the weather explains, which is exactly what elevated setpoints and bypass operation produce. That score also drives your LL95 letter grade.
The fix is mostly operational and inexpensive. Winter 2026-2027 may not be as extreme, and last January’s workarounds should not become this year’s defaults. Before the heating season is in full swing, confirm that setpoints and reset schedules reflect a normal winter and that no boilers are running on bypass. If your building has boiler controls, schedule updated training for any staff who have joined since the last one, because controls only save energy when the people running them know how to use them.
If your building does not have boiler controls, this is a good time to consider adding them. Rather than running at a fixed setting, modern controls adjust the boiler’s output throughout the day based on outdoor temperature and, in many systems, indoor readings, so the building gets only as much heat as it actually needs. Because they can be monitored and adjusted remotely, the property manager or board gets real visibility into where setpoints stand, and many controls companies keep an expert watching the system all season. Building staff have a lot to manage, and readjusting setpoints after the boilers shut down for the season is an easy thing to forget. Controls take that burden off the building and help protect your energy score and your LL97 position.
Heating operations are one of the few parts of a building’s energy use that can be adjusted quickly. A few simple checks before the cold weather arrives can help protect your ENERGY STAR score and keep your building on track for LL97. If you have any further questions about your ENERGY STAR score or LL97 position, or do not have modern online boiler controls already, reach out to your Aurora Energy Advisors contact.
Market Analysis
Natural Gas
The November NYMEX contract settled at $2.817 per MMBtu on its final trading day, down from $3.00 for the October contract a month earlier and roughly in line with November settlements over the past decade, excluding 2021 and 2022. Mild weather and storage levels above the five-year average held prices in check. Winter NYMEX contracts are also trading favorably, as forecasts call for warmer than normal temperatures across much of the country, including the Northeast, tied to this winter’s El Niño pattern.
Electricity
NYISO Zone J wholesale electricity prices mostly ran in the 3 to 5 cent per kWh range throughout October, typical of the fall shoulder season, when mild temperatures mean neither heating nor cooling is driving demand. Several mid-month days were the exception, as warm temperatures in the 70s pushed daily prices notably higher, peaking at roughly 15 cents per kWh. Prices settled back into the mid 3-cent range by month’s end, with winter weather the next test for NYISO pricing.
Crude Oil
WTI crude climbed roughly 15 percent in October, rising from about $90 a barrel at the start of the month to trade near $104 on October 30, roughly 70 percent above where it was a year ago. Continued tensions in the Middle East kept supply concerns in focus, with prices swinging by several dollars within single sessions as news on diplomatic talks came and went. Continued volatility is likely, which is worth watching for buildings with oil heat or dual fuel systems heading into winter.
💡 Mitchell’s Tip: Consider boiler controls if you don’t have them.