Clean Buildings

State’s Clean Buildings Law Nears the End of Rulemaking

Washington’s 2019 Clean Buildings Act has been undergoing rulemaking by the Department of Commerce for over a year. The law establishes a mandatory building performance standard for commercial buildings greater than 50,000 square feet and includes incentives to encourage efficiency improvements.

Commerce has issued its final draft rules, including how it plans to utilize ASHRAE Standard 100 and the EUI targets on which the performance standard for each building typology will be based. Further information is available here:

  • Draft revisions to ASHRAE Standard 100, which will guide implementation of the building performance standard, including different compliances paths;
  • Proposed energy use intensity targets (EUIt) for different types of buildings (overall: 15% below the EUI mean for a given building type, limited to 30 EUI); and
  • A memo with background on why these targets were chosen.

Comments on the above determinations by Commerce are due July 23. The formal draft rule will be released in August, followed by public hearings and the final rule published in November. An overview of the law, the proposed rules and the timeline is available from Shift Zero here. Additional information is available on Commerce’s Clean Buildings website.

For more info, contact Kirsten.

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