By Marika Erdely, MBA, LEED AP BD+C
The State of California has a regulation, AB802, which requires annual energy reporting for buildings over 50,000 square feet. For multifamily buildings with 17 or more residential meters, reports are due this June, 2019, and public disclosure begins in September, 2020. For commercial buildings with no residential meters, benchmarking reports are due this June. Public disclosure begins September, 2019. Noncompliance for either regulation could result in fees to the owner.
Phase One of the City of LA’s, new Existing Buildings Energy and Water Efficiency (EBEWE) Ordinance requires all multi-family and commercial buildings over 20,000 square feet to disclose their energy and water usage annually beginning on June 1, 2019. EBEWE also mandates public disclosure. Starting in 2020, Phase Two of these requirements mandates buildings to either be audited or meet certain energy efficiency achievements or reduce their energy and water usage every 5 years.
It is the building owner’s responsibility to comply with these new disclosure laws.
Say you own a commercial or multifamily building and you receive a notice from the Department of Building and Safety that you need to comply with EBEWE – what comes next?
The energy disclosure reports are known as Energy Star “Benchmarking.” This means uploading at least twelve months of tenant and common area utility data to the Energy Star software, which creates and submits an Energy Star Report to the city or state. This report generates an Energy Star Score. This “score” can range from 1-100, 100 being the most energy efficient score, and is an indicator of how your building’s energy consumption compares to similar buildings. The software also provides Energy Utilization Index (EUI) scores, which are compared against the latest Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS).
For AB802, compliance ends here. For EBEWE, just the report isn’t enough. After the report is complete, buildings must undergo an energy audit and retro-commissioning. However, there are many exemptions your building can meet in order to avoid the audit and retro-commissioning, such as reaching an Energy Star Score of 75 or reducing your Source Energy Use Intensity (EUI) by 15% compared to utility data from five years prior to the building’s compliance date.
With June only two months away, it can be overwhelming to think about how soon your building’s Energy Star report is due and what could happen if you don’t submit it, or submit it incorrectly. Green EconoME is here to help lift that weight off your shoulders and to make your property more energy efficient and more valuable to tenants and investors.
Green EconoME is a woman-owned, multi-disciplinary energy consulting and construction firm providing full scale energy efficiency services to diverse public and private sector clients. We approach every project from a financial perspective, recommending energy efficiency measures only when they make financial and sustainable sense. We want to help you profit from the many incentives that come along when transforming into a more energy efficient building, such as lower utility bills, incentives from utility providers, longer leases, higher market value, and so much more.
If you receive a notice that your building must comply with either of these regulations, send us an email or give us a call. Green EconoME have benchmarked over 800 properties and are always looking to explore new opportunities and new technologies that are both energy and financially-friendly! marika@greeneconome.com, tel 818-681-5750.
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