B2.2 Commercial energy audits
Develop and adopt policies that require commercial properties to undertake an energy audit at the time of sale or during a substantial remodel.
The Pacific Northwest National Lab has written a Guide to Energy Audits; ASHRAE now has a second edition of its handbook – Procedures for Commercial Building Energy Audits. The Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization project (which provides model codes for all sorts of steps in this direction) has a page that includes links to a number of cities that require audits.) The Institute for Market Transformation has done a report on several cities’ recommendations about best practices for implementing audit and recommissioning programs.
Washington’s State Energy Benchmark Law (2009) requires mandatory investment-grade energy audits for public buildings over 10,000 sq. ft.
Boulder’s Building Performance Standards require an ASHRAE Level 1 assessment every ten years for commercial buildings under 50,000 square feet and a Level 2 assessment for buildings above that size. (Their ordinance required an initial assessment within three years. They also provide technical support and some incentives for early compliance.) San Francisco requires ASHRAE Level 2 energy audits every five years for commercial buildings over 50,000 sf, and ASHRAE Level 1 energy audits for buildings between 10,000 – 49,999 sf, with some exemptions.
In addition to benchmarking requirements, San Jose requires auditing for buildings that don’t meet performance standards (including an Energy Star Score of 75+, LEED status, certain thresholds of recent score improvement, or comparisons against like properties).
Since 2016, Los Angeles’s Existing Buildings Energy and Water Efficiency Program has mandated energy auditing and retrofit requirements for large commercial and multifamily buildings. Privately owned buildings of 20,000 square feet or more and city-owned buildings of 7,500 square feet or more that are subject to the ordinance must submit energy audit and retrocommissioning reports initially and every five years thereafter.
New York City’s Local Law 87 requires buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to have an energy audit and be retro-commissioned once every ten years.