City of Philadelphia Building Energy Performance Regulation
The City of Philadelphia recently implemented regulations pertaining to the Building Energy Performance Policy. The goal of the Policy is to increase tenant comfort while decreasing energy costs and carbon emissions. The City anticipates implementation of the Policy will reduce carbon pollution by nearly 200,000 metric tons. The policy does not require specific levels of efficiency or energy usage, but rather focuses on improving building performance by identifying non-capital improvements to the operations and maintenance of existing systems. Industrial processes or specialized equipment are excluded.
The City of Philadelphia recently implemented regulations pertaining to the Building Energy Performance Policy. The goal of the Policy is to increase tenant comfort while decreasing energy costs and carbon emissions. The City anticipates implementation of the Policy will reduce carbon pollution by nearly 200,000 metric tons. The policy does not require specific levels of efficiency or energy usage, but rather focuses on improving building performance by identifying non-capital improvements to the operations and maintenance of existing systems. Industrial processes or specialized equipment are excluded.
Who is impacted?
Owners of any non-residential building with indoor floor space of at least 50,000 square feet of floor space.
Mixed-use buildings in any mixed-use zoning classification with non-residential use greater than 50,000 square feet.
Industrial and manufacturing facilities.
Temporary lodgings, including hotels, motels, and short-term rental.
Large portfolios include 20 or more covered buildings or cumulative floor area in covered buildings of 5,000,000 SF or more.
Who is not included?
Residence halls, dormitories and other non-transient large lodging places.
Parking lots and parking garages, or the portions of otherwise covered buildings used for parking.
What is the Timeline?
Building Size Square Footage - Compliance Date
>200,000 SF - September 30, 2021 (COVID-19 extension application available)
100,000 - 200,000 SF - September 30, 2022
70,000 - 100,000 SF - September 30, 2023
50,000 - 70,000 SF - September 30, 2024
Large Portfolios - January 24, 2021
20 or more covered buildings or cumulative floor area in covered buildings of 5,000,000 SF or more qualify as large portfolios and have options to submit a compliance plan that details when buildings will comply across the cycle.
How do I comply?
Buildings must comply every 5 years from their compliance date.
Conduct a tune-up
Apply for an exemption
Demonstrate your building meets a high-performance option
Received initial certificate of occupancy within 3 years of the scheduled tune-up.
Building is scheduled to be demolished within one year of the Scheduled tune-up.
What is a building tune-up?
The Building Tune-Up is an assessment of existing base building systems and corrective actions to bring the systems up to a state of good repair.
The assessment includes all systems of the building that use energy or impact energy consumption.
HVAC Operations and Controls
Lighting System Assessment
Building System Maintenance and Repairs
Domestic Hot Water and Water Usage
Building Envelope
What will the tune-up include?
Billing analysis.
Assessment of Elements: HVAC Operations and Controls, Lighting System Assessment, Building System Maintenance and Repairs, Domestic Hot Water and Water Usage, and Building Envelope
Determination and Implementation of Corrective Actions
Post implementation assessment
Final Tune-up Report
Who can perform the inspection?
A qualified tune-up specialist is a licensed Professional Engineer or Certified Energy Manager with at least 7 years of experience. This specialist must be a third-party to the building (unless a large portfolio).
In-house or contracted service providers may complete the corrective actions, however, the final tune-up report must be verified and signed by the qualified tune-up specialist.
Large Portfolios have the option to use in-house staff as their tune-up specialists, but are required to hire a third-party
Resources:
Final Legislation
City of Philadelphia Resource Page
Where Here to Help:
Practical Energy Solutions
a Division of Spotts, Stevens and McCoy
Paul Spiegel, PE, LEED AP
paul.spiegel@ssmgroup.com
Engaging Students in Conservation Program Proves Successful
Our Energy and Sustainability Services group introduced its first Energy + Resource Conservation Program over a decade ago to the West Chester Area School District. The program focused on conserving energy through behavior changes and it consisted of 3 primary elements.
Our Energy and Sustainability Services group introduced its first Energy + Resource Conservation Program over a decade ago to the West Chester Area School District. The program focused on conserving energy through behavior changes and it consisted of 3 primary elements:
Motivational presentations to all faculty, outlining the reasons to save energy and concrete ideas for saving energy in the school.
Monitoring & Validating (M+V) Tracking, including posters delivered to all schools each month, with savings tracked by kWh, cost and CO2 emissions
Teacher/student club support for any teacher and/or student group expressing interest in working on the conservation program.
The result– in West Chester’s 16 schools, we achieved a 13% district-wide reduction in electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emission and a 7.3% reduction in utility costs during the first 6 months of the program. At Henderson High School where students supplemented the program with their own “Power Down Friday” campaign, we achieved a 21% reduction in electricity us eand Greenhouse Gas emissions and a 9/.4% reduction in utility costs.
The lesson - student engagement contributed greatly to program success.
The overall success of the program laid the foundation to secure a $150,000 EPA Climate Showcase Communities grant, which enabled the creation of the West Chester Student Conservation Corps with the District’s facilities Department. Our team continued to work for 4 years, thanks to a second, follow-on Environmental Education grant from the PA Department of Education written and secured by our firm. Overall, the program reduced electricity consumption 17%, eliminated 21 million pounds of CO2 emissions, and saved $1.3 million in electricity costs.
The Educational Program
Structuring an Educational Program specifically to your school community is critical to the program’s success.
Key Elements for Success
Research-based motivational techniques. Human behavior can be challenging to influence, since behaviors derive from ingrained habits, subcortical processes, and basic biological make-up-all subconscious activities. Fortunately, there is a vast library of scientific research exposing how the brain works on this subconscious level, and many researches have applie dthis understanding to behavior change techniques. To masximize the effectives of the educational program, we integrate specific, scientifically grounded motivational techniques.
M+V Tracking. A core component of a successful behavior change program is continual feedback to building occupants so that they can realize the results of their efforts. Developing a normalization methodology to accurately account for changes in weather and building use is especially important to educational-based programs.
Identifying impactful opportunities upfront. Over the past decade many schools have undergone various forms of energy efficiency improvements. As a result, opportunities for student and teacher behaviors to impact energy consumption may be less apparent. In schools that have undergone upgrades, its important to focus efforts on meaningful behavioral changes that remaining like additional plug loads or operational refinements. For those schools that have not undergone upgrades, the opportunities are readily apparent and can begin with simple efforts like turning out lights and shutting down computers.
Inter-Departmental Participation. We have found that participation from various departments helps create a cultural shift and helps the school community affect real and lasting change.
Structured curricular component. An increasing number of districts recognize that energy and sustainability is a key challenge for our future citizens. As a result, we have added a more structured curricular component to our program that aligns with the Pennsylvania Academic Standards—namely, Environment and Ecology and S.T.E.M. The alignment with these standards not only supports many districts’ desire to better educate students about sustainability, it also aligns with the programming teachers are already utilizing in their classrooms.
Add a resource component. Many school districts want to expand their sustainability initiatives beyond energy. Therefore expanding focus to such areas as recycling or paper conservation increases opportunities for programming and savings.
Incentives. It’s important to remember that an incentive is all it takes to increase participation. When appropriate, we facilitate incentives for top-performing schools. Sometimes it’s the ice cream party at the end of the school year that fosters energy savings.