Become a Fan
Follow us on Twitter
Mandatory Energy Disclosure
Posted by Walt Vernon on February 11, 2010 at 7:49pm
More and more jurisdictions around the country are requiring building owners to publicly disclose the energy consumption of their buildings.
The first such requirement came from Washington, D.C. There, building owners must list their energy rating in a public database beginning in 2012. New York City has a similar requirement. Seattle and San Francisco are among other cities considering such disclosure.
In addition, the states of Washington and California have their own disclosure requirements. California’s law requires building owners to disclose their building energy consumption as part of transactions involving the property. In both states, building owners must provide U.S. EPA EnergyStar “benchmarking data and ratings to a prospective buyer, lessee, or lender for the most recent continuously 13 occupied twelve-month period.”
In another way, utilities are disclosing aggregate energy performance data to more and more building owners, in an attempt to change people’s behavior. That is, the utility will provide a bill showing your performance, and how it compares to an average performance, or to your neighbor’s performance. Studies have shown that this kind of disclosure leads to changed behaviors and lowered energy consumption by the recipients who do not want to think of themselves as being worse than their neighbors.
Disclosure of actual performance, coupled with human beings’ response to desire to be part of the group, will likely continue to expand in the future. Building owners would do well to do their own benchmarking, and to take appropriate steps towards improving at least towards the average.
Subscribe to our Newsfeed