Background
The Building Energy Benchmarking Program, established in 2018, requires the owners of commercial buildings with more than 50,000 square feet of gross floor area and the owners of multifamily residential buildings with more than 50,000 square feet of gross floor area and 17 or more residential dwelling units to report energy usage and building characteristic information annually to the state. This building performance data is available for public review on the CEC’s Building Energy Use Disclosure and Public Benchmarking Program Dashboard. In addition, seven cities have local benchmarking programs that supersede the state requirements (Berkeley, Brisbane, Chula Vista, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose).
Already, some local jurisdictions are moving beyond benchmarking efforts to developing BPS policies. The city of Chula Vista adopted the first building performance standards in 2021. Seven other cities (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood) and one county (the County of Los Angeles) are working on building performance policies and have signed onto the National Building Performance Standards Coalition (BPS Coalition), a group of state and local governments that have committed to inclusively design and implement building performance policies and programs in their jurisdictions. In late 2022, the state joined as well.
SB 48 Implementation: The BPS Strategy Report
Passed last year, SB 48 requires the California Energy Commission (CEC), in consultation with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), to “…develop a strategy for using benchmarking data to track and manage the energy usage and emissions of greenhouse gases of covered buildings in order to achieve the state’s goals, targets, and standards…”
The Commission is planning a comprehensive process including a series of public workshops and meetings to engage a range of stakeholders and provide opportunities for both interactive and written comments. It will produce at least one draft report and consider additional stakeholder input and feedback to generate a final version. The final report is required to be adopted by the Commission on or before July 1, 2026, and submitted to the Legislature on or before August 1, 2026, along with any additional recommendations.
As noted in our May issue, the first step in this process is the Commission’s Request for Information. The docket (24-BPS-01) is available for comment and review; the comment period at this stage closes June 26, 2024. While written comments submitted through the docket are preferred, they may also be submitted by email. There will be additional opportunities for both written comment and interactive collaboration during this proceeding. Interested parties who would like to follow or participate in this proceeding should subscribe to the “Building Performance Standards” subscription list found at the Commission’s subscriptions webpage. For general information, visit the Commission's webpage here.
The Statewide Reach Codes Program can assist local jurisdictions with policy development and technical questions related to reach code and building performance standards development. Contact info@localenergycodes.com for assistance.
