Buildings are our nation’s biggest energy guzzlers, using 40% of our energy and 70% of our electricity.
As the nation makes strides to improve the energy performance of its building stock, one effective method of doing this is with building energy codes. Building energy codes play a central role in creating a sustainable energy future by significantly reducing building energy use and ensuring safe and affordable dwellings for its businesses and citizens.
Posted in In Buildings
Tagged Building Energy Codes, Buildings, Consumers Union, Cool Communities, Maine, MUBEC, NRCM, Toolkit
Over the past six months, the Northeast has been hammered with unexpected and extreme weather. Tornadoes tore through Western Massachusetts in June and Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc throughout the entire region in August, devastating Vermont with the worst flooding they’ve seen in 84 years. We also felt the strongest earthquake to rattle the region since World War II, and last month’s October snowstorm left a reported three million on the East Coast without power. The image below of Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P)’s power outage map, taken on the morning of October 30, begins to illustrate the stark and extensive aftereffects of these storms. During the peak of the outage 830,000 customers were left in the dark: no lights, no heat, no water…and in some towns for as long as 10 days. These events force communities and government to seriously grapple with, and possibly rethink, emergency preparedness plans. Continue reading
Posted in In Best Practices, In Buildings
Tagged Energy, High Performance Buildings, net, zero, ZNE
First adopted over a decade ago in Australia and Denmark, mandatory building energy rating policies are now in place in over 30 countries worldwide. Fundamentally, rating and disclosure is pretty straightforward – we see the concept applied every day in nutritional labels on food, fuel economy stickers on cars and energy labels on appliances. Unfortunately for buildings, slapping on an energy rating label isn’t as easy as this photo illustrates and unlike national labeling requirements for vehicles or appliances, rating and disclosure policy requirements for buildings will vary substantially between jurisdictions. Continue reading
ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007
— In the world of advanced building energy codes, it’s a major disappointment.
ASHRAE 90.2 is a Residential Energy Standard published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) that provides guidance for meeting minimum energy efficiency requirements in low-rise residential buildings (single family to multi-family). And in its current draft, 90.2 is under ASHRAE committee review.
Posted in In Buildings
Tagged 90.1, 90.2, ASHRAE, Building Energy Codes, Buildings, Energy Standard, Final Action Hearings, ICC, IECC
Utility energy efficiency programs have increased by more than 550 percent since 1999. Concurrently, utility customer service is also expanding with innovative customer service offerings which enhance customer satisfaction and improve service delivery while managing costs. Utility executives agree these efforts are rapidly converging and the successful utilities will be the ones that can optimize the nexus of these programs. [More]
