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SAWHORSE
ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Power-use scorecards help building managers cut usage
San Francisco is first city in state with “benchmarking” rules; Los Angeles may institute a similar program.
http://www.pe.com/articles/energy-801501-buildings-city.html
Barry Hooper’s co-workers can be forgiven if they try to avoid him in the office. No one wants to be fingered as an energy hog.
Hooper manages San Francisco’s five-year-old building-efficiency ordinance, created to measure wasted energy in the city’s largest structures, give them a score the public can see and prod owners to lower the lights and thermostats.
San Francisco’s ordinance is the first in California, with Berkeley about to enact one and Los Angeles working on a similar program.
No Inland city has such a program or appears to be considering one.
“I’m not aware of any of our cities looking at that,” said Barbara Spoonhour, director of energy and environmental programs for the Western Riverside Council of Governments.
The ordinance Hooper wrote for San Francisco requires participation by owners of more than 1,800 commercial buildings larger than 10,000 square feet. They report their energy-use data electronically, updating the information every April 1.
The data is crunched according to federal Energy Star guidelines, and each structure is “benchmarked” with a score, from a low of 1 to maximum efficiency at 100. The scores are posted online – the iconic Transamerica Pyramid has an 88 – and Hooper and his team work with property personnel to increase efficiency and reduce consumption.
In November 2015, the Los Angeles City Council directed the city attorney’s office and the building and safety department to draft an ordinance requiring owners of buildings at least 10,000 square feet and city buildings over 7,500 square feet to benchmark and disclose energy and water use each year, according to council documents.
City-owned buildings would first need to report in 2016. Buildings more than 50,000 square feet would report in 2017, more than 25,000 square feet in 2018 and more than 10,000 square feet in 2019.
Building owners would enter building information and usage data, based on utility bills, into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s online tool, EnergyStar Portfolio Manager. The data would be sent to the building and safety department for public disclosure.
The ordinance, which is still being prepared, is expected to go before the Los Angeles City Council in the next few months, said Lisa Hansen, chief of staff for Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who collaborated with Councilman Jose Huizar to bring the matter before the council.
Since San Francisco adopted efficiency monitoring in 2011, energy use in participating buildings has fallen nearly 8 percent, according to an audit report last year by the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
New York, Boston and Seattle have similar programs. State officials are poised to adopt a version under recently enacted energy policies, with the details still being determined.
Although more efficient energy use has long been a goal of regular updates to California’s building code, Gov. Jerry Brown raised the stakes last year by signing a law that calls for homes and commercial structures to slash their power use radically by 2030. Part of that effort will be making buildings’ energy footprints transparent.
Hooper is now helping the state energy commission design its system, which may assign a numeric or letter grade for display in building lobbies, much as health grades are posted in restaurants.
The Western Riverside Council of Governments has benchmarked two municipal facilities each in some cities. The scores tell city officials how their buildings’ energy efficiency compares to others across the country, Spoonhour said.
San Francisco is first city in state with “benchmarking” rules; Los Angeles may institute a similar program.
http://www.pe.com/articles/energy-801501-buildings-city.html
Barry Hooper’s co-workers can be forgiven if they try to avoid him in the office. No one wants to be fingered as an energy hog.
Hooper manages San Francisco’s five-year-old building-efficiency ordinance, created to measure wasted energy in the city’s largest structures, give them a score the public can see and prod owners to lower the lights and thermostats.
San Francisco’s ordinance is the first in California, with Berkeley about to enact one and Los Angeles working on a similar program.
No Inland city has such a program or appears to be considering one.
“I’m not aware of any of our cities looking at that,” said Barbara Spoonhour, director of energy and environmental programs for the Western Riverside Council of Governments.
The ordinance Hooper wrote for San Francisco requires participation by owners of more than 1,800 commercial buildings larger than 10,000 square feet. They report their energy-use data electronically, updating the information every April 1.
The data is crunched according to federal Energy Star guidelines, and each structure is “benchmarked” with a score, from a low of 1 to maximum efficiency at 100. The scores are posted online – the iconic Transamerica Pyramid has an 88 – and Hooper and his team work with property personnel to increase efficiency and reduce consumption.
In November 2015, the Los Angeles City Council directed the city attorney’s office and the building and safety department to draft an ordinance requiring owners of buildings at least 10,000 square feet and city buildings over 7,500 square feet to benchmark and disclose energy and water use each year, according to council documents.
City-owned buildings would first need to report in 2016. Buildings more than 50,000 square feet would report in 2017, more than 25,000 square feet in 2018 and more than 10,000 square feet in 2019.
Building owners would enter building information and usage data, based on utility bills, into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s online tool, EnergyStar Portfolio Manager. The data would be sent to the building and safety department for public disclosure.
The ordinance, which is still being prepared, is expected to go before the Los Angeles City Council in the next few months, said Lisa Hansen, chief of staff for Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who collaborated with Councilman Jose Huizar to bring the matter before the council.
Since San Francisco adopted efficiency monitoring in 2011, energy use in participating buildings has fallen nearly 8 percent, according to an audit report last year by the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
New York, Boston and Seattle have similar programs. State officials are poised to adopt a version under recently enacted energy policies, with the details still being determined.
Although more efficient energy use has long been a goal of regular updates to California’s building code, Gov. Jerry Brown raised the stakes last year by signing a law that calls for homes and commercial structures to slash their power use radically by 2030. Part of that effort will be making buildings’ energy footprints transparent.
Hooper is now helping the state energy commission design its system, which may assign a numeric or letter grade for display in building lobbies, much as health grades are posted in restaurants.
The Western Riverside Council of Governments has benchmarked two municipal facilities each in some cities. The scores tell city officials how their buildings’ energy efficiency compares to others across the country, Spoonhour said.