Resources

The paper provides an overview of a project in Ohio that is using a new approach to BPS. It covers the collaborative, statewide partnership and the development of cost-optimal methods.

The paper describe’s Seattle’s Clean Buildings Accelerator, a program that prepares owners and operators to meet BPS state law. The program prioritizes building owners/operators from frontline communities. The paper includes lessons learned from the program and a program expansion that was co-designed with community reps.

The paper provides an overview of lessons learned from delivering foundational technical analysis, such as building stock and emission analysis, peak load analysis, and cost-benefit analysis. It describes what each analysis can provide and gives examples from locations on how the analysis was executed.

The paper discusses aligning building energy codes with BPS to enhance energy efficiency in new and existing buildings. It highlights the challenges of ensuring that newly constructed buildings meet both energy code and future BPS requirements, and offers strategies for policymakers to bridge the gap between design-phase energy codes and long-term performance standards.

The paper presents a case study using the BEAM Optimizer tool. The same building is analyzed under 3 scenarios – one without BPS penalties, one subject to carbon intensity policy, and one subject to site energy use intensity metric. A key takeaway is the need to incldue avoided penalties in financial calculations, the impact of penalty structure on decision-making, and the importance of having long-term targets to guide decisions.

The brief explores the integration of climate resilience into BPS, emphasizing the need to align building decarbonization with resilience against climate-related hazards. It reviews existing BPS across various cities and states, proposing a framework for incorporating equity and resilience into policy, aiming to address energy efficiency, grid support, and building resilience, particularly for vulnerable communities.

The paper explores the expanding role of utilities in supporting energy code implementation and BPS by offering technical assistance, incentives, and advocacy for energy efficiency. It discusses attribution methods for utility-driven energy savings and highlights opportunities for collaboration between states, utilities, and local jurisdictions to achieve greater energy and emissions reductions.

To achieve net zero energy and emissions performance, building energy codes need to transition to performance-based approaches. This paper discusses the approaches of two US jurisdictions to improve the usability for both code compliance and beyond code programs. The authors share a methodology and results that test the alignment of energy code compliance for new construction and future BPS energy targets.

Jurisdictions leveraging benchmarking and building performance standards require knowledge of the buildings covered; which is a large task due to staffing constraints, limited information on building characteristics and tax parcel data, and the need for advanced data management techniques to align datasets. SEED Platform can create consistent taxonomies, identify erroneous data, enable auditability, and track building performance.

It presents 15 recommendations, created through a deeply participatory process, which are designed to ensure the success of the Clean Buildings Law through consideration of innovative, strategic, and equitable approaches. A key finding of the financial analysis is that buildings owners face costs close to $4.50 per square foot to comply with the law, above and beyond the costs spent on energy saving measures.

Technical Reference documentation for the clustering approach used for building segmentation analysis