The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced last week it has established regulations that require new Federal buildings to achieve at least 30% greater energy efficiency over prevailing building codes.
Mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct), these standards apply to new federal commercial and multi-family high-rise residential buildings, as well as new federal low-rise residential buildings designed for construction that began on or after January 3, 2007. These standards are also 40% more efficient than the current Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and carry out portions of President Bush’s Executive Order (EO #13423), announced earlier this year, which directed federal agencies to reduce energy intensity and greenhouse gas emissions; substantially increase use and efficiency of renewable energy technologies; and adopt sustainable design practices.
Over the course of the next ten years, these standards are estimated to save taxpayer’s $776 million dollars (in 2004 dollars) and more than 40 trillion British thermal units (Btu’s) of energy, while reducing emissions by an estimated 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
There are three key features of these new standards that differentiate them from previous Federal building energy efficiency standards. First, new Federal standards are based directly on updated prevailing voluntary sector standards in effort to maximize resources and take advantage of improvements in those voluntary sector standards.
Second, new Federal standards seek improvements above and beyond those of the voluntary sector standards through consideration of and entire building’s performance, rather than on prescriptive requirements for individual building components and systems. This approach provides the maximum amount of flexibility to Federal agencies and their design teams as they address the requirements of these new standards.
Third, new Federal standards require at least 30% energy savings over the prevailing voluntary sector standard. Achieving this level of savings will require Federal agencies and their design teams to use an integrated design approach for new buildings.
Section 109 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 also requires the new standards require the use of cost-effective sustainable design principles and water conservation technologies. The Department is expected to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking on these additional requirements next year.
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