Building Codes: Simple Energy Savings

April 9th, 2012 by John Farrell

In energy policy, lawmakers often prefer carrots to sticks because it minimizes the opposition. But mandatory rules, like building energy codes, can save energy and pay back several times over during the useful life of buildings.

The state of Illinois is poised to become a regional leader by adopting the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), an example of small-seeming rules with big impact. For example, 40% of primary energy consumption in the U.S. is in buildings, along with about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, adopting the 2012 IECC (as Illinois is doing), with energy efficiency standards 28% stronger than the 2006 code, can make a big dent in carbon emissions.

The financial savings can add up, as well. The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated in 2005 that homeowners in the Midwest spent an average of $1,800 per year on household energy use. Assuming states had already adopted the 2006 IECC for the previous expenditure figure, the implementation of the 2012 code could save families $500 per year.

Builders often fight codes, and the ones in Illinois are no different, claiming the cost of the improvements will add $5,000 to the cost of a new home. But in fact, the increased cost of a home built to the 2012 code in Illinois will increase the home’s cost by $1500 (~$6 a month) but save $33 per month in energy costs.

In other words, improved energy efficiency in building codes saves homeowners from day 1.

The U.S. Department of Energy supplies maps depicting the current status of state building codes — its residential map is shown below (hold ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ button to make larger).

Already, 30 states have adopted the 2009 IECC or better, and interestingly, the pattern does not follow traditional red-blue state political divisions.

Of course, a code is only as good as compliance — enforced by municipal government — and the Alliance to Save Energy suggests that it can be spotty. Anyone know of good studies of code compliance?

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (check out our new website!).

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Tags: building code, Buildings, commercial, energy savings, residential, state

About the Author

John Farrell directs the Democratic Energy program at ILSR and he focuses on energy policy developments that best expand the benefits of local ownership and dispersed generation of renewable energy. His seminal paper, Democratizing the Electricity System, describes how to blast the roadblocks to distributed renewable energy generation, and how such small-scale renewable energy projects are the key to the biggest strides in renewable energy development. Farrell also authored the landmark report Energy Self-Reliant States, which serves as the definitive energy atlas for the United States, detailing the state-by-state renewable electricity generation potential. Farrell regularly provides discussion and analysis of distributed renewable energy policy on his blog, Energy Self-Reliant States (energyselfreliantstates.org), and articles are regularly syndicated on Grist and Renewable Energy World. John Farrell can also be found on Twitter @johnffarrell, or at jfarrell@ilsr.org.

Bennett Fisher

This article calls out an issue that is rarely talked about but does have a tangible impact on energy savings. In the commercial sector, building benchmarking is another important, yet under-the-radar issue that can help drive lower energy consumption across our country’s stock of buildings. Traditional benchmarks – such as LEED, EnergyStar and spending per square foot – don’t strongly correlate to energy savings opportunities. There’s a big push at the city, state and federal level to explore new types of benchmarking programs, such as asset labeling, which provide a measure of a building based on the efficiency of the actual systems installed in the building. It will be interesting to see the progression of these new benchmarking programs, as well as building codes, in the commercial sector. – Bennett Fisher, CEO, Retroficiency
MK

Where do these figures come from :

Builders often fight codes, and the ones in Illinois are no different, claiming the cost of the improvements will add $5,000 to the cost of a new home. But in fact, the increased cost of a home built to the 2012 code in Illinois will increase the home’s cost by $1500

Thanks.
Matt

Now if we wanted to really move (Think Apollo program) then building codes would move even faster up the curve. Think Single famly home must produce on site at least n% of peak power use. Can design to use less or make more power. You start n at say 20% and increase by 5% a year until it is 50%.

For apartments, commerial the rules would have to be different; but could move them along also. Japan was looking at something similar; requiring all new buildings to have on site power production.

Then there is the question of pushing existing buildings forward. But the likely best approach there is a carbon tax, that is return a N dollars per person and the rest on energy eff projects.