Making a Difference

Meet Edwin Mendez, Acting Deputy Director of Energy & Sustainability Programs in the Capital Projects Division 

Since his very first day at NYCHA, Edwin Mendez has worked in various energy-efficiency programs in the Energy and Sustainability Programs Department. In fact, his first role at the Authority – an internship in 2006 – later became Mr. Mendez’s first full-time job after graduating from Hunter College. 

“Throughout my entire career, I always played a role in the implementation of energy-efficiency projects – which many years ago was installing CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) and is now LED lamps,” Mr. Mendez explained. “For heating and hot water upgrades, it was the installation of more efficient boilers and now it is the electrification of NYCHA buildings to help NYCHA achieve its carbon reduction goals.” 

Mr. Mendez is currently the Acting Deputy Director of Energy and Sustainability Programs. He supervises a team of eight employees who implement construction contracts and work on NYCHA’s energy-efficiency and sustainability objectives.

“One of the great things that our department does is implementing programs in which we can find funding streams that NYCHA would normally not receive,” said Mr. Mendez. “For instance, Energy Performance Contracts, where the energy savings generating from the work pays for the initial construction costs over 20 years.” 

NYCHA published its updated Sustainability Agenda in September 2021, outlining a clear goal of a more sustainable Authority. Mr. Mendez said that the real inspiration comes when the ideas generated in a small team become an Authority-wide policy and a city-wide standard. 

“To make the work that we do at NYCHA a standard is the best reward,” he noted. “And it’s already happening: a steam boiler won’t be replaced with another steam boiler; it’ll be either hydronic conversions, which is a more efficient way of providing heat and hot water, or electrification of heat and hot water. As the NYC grid gets cleaner, converting to the electric type of heating allows not just NYCHA but the city to reduce its carbon output. That is real inspiration…when we pilot something and it becomes a norm, you can tell that you had an impact.” 

For fresh ideas, NYCHA’s Energy and Sustainability team often looks at the experience of other countries. “For example, currently we have a demonstration project that is using a model from the Netherlands called ‘Energiesprong,’ which is looking towards doing panelized cladding [materials applied to building exteriors],” Mr. Mendez explained. “We plan to install heating equipment within that cladding that would be attached to our buildings’ façades and would heavily insulate the buildings. It will also shrink the heating system to a smaller one. We recognize that NYCHA’s size allows us to change markets, and that’s one of the goals – to bring down the costs for deep energy retrofits.”