Energy and the Empire Plaza

The Empire Plaza and connected buildings (Alfred E Smith and Capitol) use 111 gigawatt hours of power a year (electricity only, doesn’t include fossil heating or cooling).

To build a solar farm to power the Empire Plaza it would require demolishing 320 acres of buildings in the city of Albany, which is three and third more buildings then had to demolished to build the Empire Plaza itself – figuring 2.8 acres of land needed within the city for every gigawatt hour per year of electricity generated.

That’s roughly the area of the South Mall Arterial to Interstate 787 to the FBI Building to an imaginary line connecting to Eagle Street. 100 percent renewable sounds like a good idea, but it has an enormous environmental impact.

At least that’s what my back of the envelope calculations show.