Outcome-Based Approach
Resources
OBC Around The World:
Singapore: Singapore's Green Building Standards and Masterplan includes building energy consumption benchmarking, periodic audits, and mandatory retrocommissioning for underperforming equipment and systems.
Seattle, WA: Washington's energy code, including additional Seattle provisions, offer a form of outcome-based energy code compliance. In exchange for increased design flexibility and reduced mandatory building requirements, commercial buildings following the "target performance" approach agree to provide utility billing data to demonstrate energy performance.
Boulder, CO: The city's Building Performance ordinance requires commercial and industrial buildings to rate and report annual energy use, complete periodic energy audits, and perform cost-effective energy tune-ups ever 10 years.
Other Resources The National Institute of Building Sciences and New Buildings Institute have published a guidance document for cities considering outcome-based code.
The 2018 International Green Construction Code (IGCC) provides the design and construction industry with an effective way to deliver sustainable, resilient, high-performance buildings. IGCC includes options for outcome-based code.
CEA’s Inaugural OBC Workshop - San Diego, December 2018
Over 40 energy leaders from across the state and the nation gathered to focus on OBC, representing research institutions, policy makers, environmental organizations, design professionals, the building automation industry, electrical contractors, labor and national research laboratories.
CEA’s Commitment To Outcome-Based Code
As part of CEA’s mission to drive meaningful, innovative policy improvements that support California’s strategic energy and environmental goals, the Alliance believes that the development and implementation of an Outcome-Based Code (OBC) presents an essential opportunity for positive change. Outcome-Based Code uses actual, measured energy use as the overarching metric for demonstrating code compliance.
The Alliance has completed a comprehensive review of adoption pathways, compliance and enforcement needs, and has explored the necessary steps needed to enable a practical, statewide OBC program.
CEA continues to reach out to and collaborate with stakeholder organizations, to engage with jurisdictions on existing Outcome-Based Codes, to identify the pathways toward market transformation, and to support the ultimate adoption and implementation of OBC. CEA is poised to launch a comprehensive research project that will compare building energy models with actual metered energy use, analyze the results, provide recommendations for implementation, and serve as the basis for the evolution of codes, policy and standards for OBC.
What is outcome-based code?
In order to determine compliance with energy codes, Outcome-Based Code (OBC) relies on measured energy use instead of estimates based on expected connected load or modeling. OBC also captures whole building energy use including process loads and other Miscellaneous Electric Loads (MELs), which often go unaddressed by performance or prescriptive energy code compliance approaches. With an OBC approach, buildings are often monitored, post-occupancy, for a predetermined time period or periodically over many years. This data can then be used to determine if additional energy conservation measures are needed to bring the building in-line with minimum energy requirements. Strategies such as equipment tune-ups and retro-commissioning may then be deployed to improve building energy performance.
Why Adopt an OBC Approach?
Deep and necessary gains in building energy efficiency cannot continue without considering actual building performance. As the performance demands increase for our buildings – such as incorporating more connectivity, IoT, battery storage, on-site generation, frequent changes in space utilization, and other current trends – a better understanding of buildings as integrated systems is critical. Real-time or near real-time measurement and analysis of actual energy use, in order to optimize the building as a whole, is critical.
Benefits of OBC:
Simplifies regulatory requirements
Minimizes prescriptive requirements and complex modeling
Supports design innovation by increasing flexibility in the use of systems and strategies that meet the functional and aesthetic goals for a building
Recognizes and rewards energy efficiency - in all forms
Facilitates adoption of new technologies
Increases predictive accuracy of energy models based on actual energy-use data
Improves energy code compliance
Facilitates decarbonization
Join Us!
CEA launched its OBC initiative in December 2018, with the goal of realizing an OBC compliance approach for California’s Building Energy Efficiency Standards.
Current Practice
There are two compliance paths available under California’s Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24, Part 6):
The prescriptive* path most often used for retrofit and small new construction projects
The performance* path most often used for large, new construction and major renovation projects
The prescriptive path is complex, and the performance path requires complicated and expensive modeling. Neither approach accurately captures actual building energy performance. Thus, there is a persistent gap between the energy savings California claims and the actual energy savings that materialize.
CEA Presents OBC - September 2019
CEA Co-Chair and Program Development Lead, Cori Jackson and SME Terry Sharp, Oakridge National Laboratory presented CEA’s OBC initiative at the 2019 AEE World Energy Conference