Party Walls

The Clean Energy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018 was signed into law in 2019, establishing minimum Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) for existing buildings. The law requires all private buildings over 50,000 SF to benchmark energy use and demonstrate energy performance above a median baseline beginning January 1, 2021. The law also lowers the threshold for buildings that need to benchmark; buildings between 25,000 and 49,999 SF will need to benchmark energy use beginning in 2021. Buildings between 10,000 and 24,999 square feet will need to benchmark energy use beginning in 2024.

If a building does not score above the median performance of Washington, DC buildings, it has five years to demonstrate improvement or face financial penalties. By definition, 50% of the buildings required to comply with BEPS will fall below the median—even those just a point or two under. (You can download a list of property types and their medians here.) Building owners can use this map from DOEE to check if their building meets the BEPS.

This month, DOEE released the final BEPS compliance rules. These rules cover the different compliance pathways and the documentation required for each pathway.

This blog post was originally published on September 11, 2019. It was updated on November 18, 2021 with new guidance in response to the DOEE’s final BEPS compliance rules. Click here to learn more.

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ICYMI: The code change proposals for the 2021 IECC are open for voting by Governmental Member Voting Representatives (GMVR) from Monday, November 18^th through Friday, December 6^th, and your vote is instrumental in making buildings consume less energy! [Need a quick refresher on the code process? Check out our blog post here!]

Does your vote even matter?

Overall, there are not actually that many voters on a given proposal. In the energy proposals, last cycle, it ranged from about 200-400 voters per proposal, even though there were a total of 1,247 voters on the Group B codes, which includes the IECC.

 

So a small handful of voters can entirely shape the future of the energy codes that dictate how energy efficient our buildings will be! If history repeats itself, while some online voters tend to align with the Committee, many online voters align their votes with those cast by their fellow ICC voters at the Public Comment Hearings. This happened 81% of the time in 2016. Unlike 2016, in this cycle all the electronic votes cast during the Public Comment Hearings will be rolled into the online vote tally (although those voters can still change their vote).

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Overview

There have been several local and global developments recently with regards to off-shore wind turbines. Advancements in energy storage from both wind and solar energy, coupled with the increased rate of adoption of wind turbines could serve as a major step towards a more renewable-based energy grid and a more sustainable future.

Updates on Energy Production

First, let’s explore some recent news surrounding the adoption of off-shore wind turbines. On a global scale, Scotland’s Hywind project recently proved that technology developed for and by the oil drilling industry can be successfully applied to off-shore wind turbines.[2] The floating 30 MW wind farm, made up of five turbines off the Aberdeenshire coast, has been operational since October 2017. During a three-month period of stormy conditions from November 2018 to January 2019, the wind farm managed to continue energy production at 65% of their maximum capacity. Note that during this period, a North Atlantic hurricane produced swells up to 27 feet! Over the course of a year “maximum capacity” is approximately 135 GWh of electricity – or enough to power 20,000 Scottish homes. To ensure that the turbines can withstand weather events on that scale, the floating turbines are ballasted by 5,000 tons of iron ore, and 1,323 tons of chain anchor it to the seafloor. This off-shore farm proves that wind turbines can be successfully deployed in deeper waters where it would be increasingly expensive to extend the physical structure of the turbine tower to the seafloor. Additionally, the US, UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, and South Korea all have started to piggyback off the success of the Hywind farm in various ways. For instance, South Korea partnered with the Equinor, the primary backer of Hywind, to conduct a feasibility study for a 200 MW farm that would be located off the coast of Ulsan.[3][4][5][6]

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On April 18th, Introduction 1253-2018 was approved by the New York City Council along with several other major pieces of legislation as part of a Climate Mobilization Act. The Urban Green Council describes it as “arguably the most disruptive in our lifetime of the NYC real estate industry.” We agree. While it will take some time to more precisely gauge impact across the industry, here is an initial primer.

Update: On May 18^th Intro 1253 was passed into law as Local Law 97 of 2019.

Context

Previous building energy legislation in NYC has focused primarily on providing the market with access to information in the form of benchmarking and audits. In response to increasing demands for more urgent climate action, this new local law will actually require energy performance levels – and significant retrofits in some cases – in most existing buildings over 25,000 square feet between now and 2030 and deeper reductions beyond 2030.

How Does Local Law 97 Work?

The law establishes targets for carbon-emissions intensity per square foot for buildings based on occupancy class. For instance, multifamily buildings, office buildings, schools, and storage facilities will have different intensity targets. Mixed-use buildings will have their targets set based on a weighted average of their different spaces. Across all segments, these targets will get ratcheted down over time. Building on the type of data submitted as part of annual benchmarking, all tenant and owner energy used at a particular building will be converted to carbon intensity per square foot.

Starting in 2024, buildings will be fined on an annual basis for carbon footprint that exceeds their targets. Based on their performance today, approximately 20% of buildings exceed the 2024 – 2029 targets while approximately 75% of buildings exceed the 2030 – 2034 targets, according to the City Council’s press release. As an alternative to this performance-based framework, rent regulated multifamily buildings with at least one rent stabilized apartment will be required to implement a prescriptive list of upgrades by 2024. These upgrades include indoor temperature sensors providing feedback to boilers and apartment thermostatic controls.

What Will It Mean to the Market?

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), viewed as the most credible source of climate change research, issued an alarming report on October 2018 removing all doubt – absent aggressive action the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 ° F above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. The significance of this report is that the effects of climate change will occur in our lifetime.

The building construction sector has a critical role in drawing down carbon emissions by 2040. As nations all over the globe tackle operational emissions from buildings, we must now address our total emissions impact.

 

Life-cycle emissions resulting from buildings consist of two components: operational and embodied. A great deal of effort has been put into reducing the former as it is assumed to be higher than the latter. Studies have revealed the growing significance of embodied emissions in buildings, but its importance is often underestimated in energy efficiency decisions.

According to the Embodied Carbon Review 2018 by Bionova Inc, embodied carbon is the total impact of all the greenhouse gases emitted by the construction and materials of our built environment. Furthermore, during their life-cycle, the same products also cause carbon impacts when maintained, repaired, or disposed of.

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So in utility and policy circles, electrification is all the rage. Grid electricity is getting cleaner (i.e. resulting in lower CO₂ emissions), on-site renewables are taking off (sometimes even with storage), and heat pump technologies are getting better. More regional and utility initiatives are encouraging building owners/designers/developers to forego onsite fossil fuels entirely (or at least mostly) to help meet CO₂ emission reduction goals. But is electricity really more sustainable than natural gas? Is it cheaper? Which is better, really?

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The Stamford 2030 District is an interdisciplinary collaborative of high-performance buildings in downtown Stamford committed to ambitious efficiency goals. Stamford 2030 District’s strategic plan outlines a series of interim sustainability goals guiding the city towards 50% reduction in energy use, water consumption, and CO2 emissions for existing buildings and infrastructure, and full carbon neutrality for all new construction by 2030. Watch the video to hear key program stakeholders discuss success measures, including SWA’s Gayathri Vijayakumar on the role of benchmarking, and Mayor David Martin on public-private-nonprofit community participation.

This October, Governor Cuomo announced with former Vice President Gore that New York will join the Under 2 MOU effort to join states and cities around the world in pledging to reduce GHG emissions 80% by 2050. The Under 2 MOU is a global joint effort to encourage action at the Conference of the Parties meeting at the 21st UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris later this year.

This is not the first commitment that impacts performance targets for buildings in New York. Both the city and state have committed to deep reductions in emissions that have regulatory and programmatic impacts on buildings.

What Targets are in Place?

The Under 2 MOU program is already in line with New York’s same self imposed target in place: 80 by 50 via Executive Order No. 24 which was signed in 2009. New York is one of 20 states, plus DC, with a target in place.

New York City has a comparable target.  In September 2014 the One City Built to Last plan also targeted an 80% reduction by 2050. But to reach this target, the city needs to reduce 30% of GHG from the building stock by 2025.

How Does New York Reach These Goals?
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