GREENBUILD Virtual INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE +EXPO 2020
PANEL DISCUSSION - On-Demand:
Transforming California’s Energy Code to be Outcome-Based
Thursday November 12, 1 - 2 p.m. Pacific
As part of the three day virtual event, CEA’s Executive Director, Josh Dean, Clifton Stanley Lemon, CEA Business Development Director and CEA Members, Rebecca Baptiste, Center for Sustainable Energy, Sean Denniston, New Building Institute, and Kelly Seger, Signify are featured on this timely panel.
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Under California’s current Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24, Part 6), there are two available compliance paths: prescriptive and performance. However, neither approach captures actual building energy performance post-construction. The result is a gap in quantifying the energy savings California claims versus the actual energy savings.
Increasing performance demands such as increased connectivity, battery storage and space utilization changes further emphasize the restrictions set by the current compliance paths. Building professionals need improved mechanisms that evaluate buildings as integrated systems and provide greater insight into how new changes directly impact the operations of buildings. Going forward, the California Energy Code will not be able to achieve deep and necessary gains in building energy efficiency to meet state energy goals without consideration of actual building performance.
To better align building performance improvement with evolving policy goals and new energy efficiency technologies, it will be necessary to move to an outcome-based energy code. Under this strategy, actual energy use is the metric by which building performance is judged. This approach focuses on real and measurable energy performance improvement rather than on the relationship of the buildings’ energy characteristics compared to a theoretical building built to a code baseline.
The California Energy Alliance is currently focusing on the foundational requirements of transitioning California’s energy code to an outcome-based strategy. This process includes a comprehensive review of adoption pathways, compliance and enforcement needs and the identification of the steps needed to enable a practical, statewide OBC program.
The panel discussion, moderated by the Center for Sustainable Energy and featuring representatives from the New Buildings Institute, California Energy Alliance and San Diego Green Building Council, will review existing outcome-based codes, explore gaps in today’s California Energy Code and detail next steps on the road to outcome-based code adoption in California.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Provide a high-level review of current Title 24, Part 6 requirements in California
Examine existing outcome-based codes in jurisdictions throughout the US
Understand the limitations of current California Energy Codes in relation to building performance objectives
Detail California Energy Alliance’s outcome-based code efforts in California
Please note conference registration is required to view/attend the panel discussion.
*GREENBUILD CONFERENCE +EXPO INFORMATION November 10 -12 , 2020