B2.8 Performance Standard *
Set energy efficiency performance standards for commercial buildings with gross floor areas smaller than 50,000 square feet.
Legislation passed in 2019 (HB 1257), mandates the Washington State Department of Commerce to implement energy performance standards for non-residential buildings of at least 50,000 square feet. (Industrial and agricultural buildings are excluded.) The standards will be implemented as a voluntary efficiency program from 2021 to 2026, with the mandatory requirements taking effect in 2026, and incentives for early compliance which are also open to multifamily buildings this size. The standard is in Chapter 194-50 WAC.
The Institute for Market Transformation has developed a model performance standard ordinance for local jurisdictions. It includes water conservation and optimizing peak demand to reduce grid emissions, which are not necessarily reduced just by reducing energy use, if that occurs at off peak times. It will add indoor air quality standards.
Boston’s Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance required residential and non-residential buildings larger than 35,000 square feet to report annual energy and water use. Every five years a building must complete a major energy saving action producing “a 15% reduction in total site energy consumption, site energy use intensity, or total greenhouse gas emissions”, or an ASHRAE audit. (Highly efficient buildings, such as Zero-net Energy and Zero-net Carbon, are exempt.) Its 2021 update requires all buildings over 20,000 square feet to reduce their emissions in five year steps and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. (This covers about 4% of the city’s structures, which produce 60% of its building emissions.) The law allows offsets, and provides for alternative compliance payments starting at $234/tonne, which the City’s to spend on local environmental justice carbon abatement projects.
Denver’s building electrification ordinance requires commercial and multifamily buildings over 25,000 square feet to reduce their energy use by 30% by 2030, and meet intermediate targets. The buildings account for 49% of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, and by 2040 the ordinance is predicted to have reduced the city’s buildings emissions by roughly 80%.
The City of Vancouver, BC adopted the Zero Emission Building Plan in 2016. The plan requires that all new construction in Vancouver achieve zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. The plan implements a stepped approach where the Vancouver Building Bylaws lower greenhouse gas intensity and thermal energy demand intensity every five years. New buildings can comply through two compliance pathways: high performance building envelope and ventilation systems, and neighborhood renewable energy.
Washington, DC, established Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS), which requires that beginning in 2021, all privately-owned buildings with at least 50,000 square feet to reduce energy usage by at least 20% over a five year compliance period. By 2026, all privately-owned buildings of 10,000 square feet or more need to comply with energy reduction targets. The DC Sustainable Energy Utility and the Building Innovation Hub provide technical assistance to building owners.
Saint Louis followed up on its 2017 benchmarking ordinance by adopting an energy performance standard that commercial, multifamily, institutional and municipal buildings will have to meet by May 2025. A standard for the site intensity energy use of buildings will be set by a Building Energy Improvement Board with representation from the building industry, utilities, and building owners. Initially, it’s to be no lower than the site EUI of the 65th percentile of similar buildings; it’s to be updated every four years.
New York City Local Law 97 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by 40 percent by 2030. The law addresses buildings of at least 25,000 square feet, setting emissions intensity limits that take effect beginning in 2024.
The European Union has implemented two major directives to Member States about setting building performance standards. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, Directive 2010/31/EU, passed in 2010, lays down requirements that all EU Member States require all new buildings to be “nearly zero-energy buildings” by 2021, and all new public buildings be nearly zero-energy by 2019. For existing buildings, Member States are required to develop long-term strategies to meet a zero-energy building stock by 2050. Each member state has to establish definitions and measures for what constitutes nearly zero-energy. As of the beginning of 2020, 24 Member States had submitted national plans outlining how each will meet the requirements of the directive. The second major directive, the Energy Efficiency Directive (Directive 2012/27/EU), requires member states to meet an energy efficiency target of 32.5 percent by 2030. Member States must transpose the directive into national law by June 2020 to reduce building energy consumption by at least 4.4 percent annually.