WA State Building Energy Efficiency

My Energy Efficient Workplace. I wrote in a previous post about my Energy Star office building. Okay, it isn't really mine. It belongs to Clise Properties, which also owns a number of other office buildings in and around the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. My office is located in their building at 1700 – Seventh Avenue in downtown Seattle. I am pleased to be in a building that is more energy efficient than the average office building.

WA State Energy Efficiency Bill. I am also pleased that my state is moving to implement measures to make office buildings more energy efficient. This past year, the Washington State legislature passed a bill with the simple title of Reducing climate pollution in the built environment. I find the first two lines of the bill somewhat enlightening:

"The legislature finds that energy efficiency is the cheapest, quickest, and cleanest way to meet rising energy needs, confront climate change, and boost our economy. More than thirty percent of Washington's greenhouse gas emissions come from energy use in buildings." – From State Bill 5854 – 2009-10

The bill calls for the state – through the Washington State Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development – to develop "a strategic plan for enhancing energy efficiency". That must be a good thing, although I have no idea about what progress has been made on this plan since the bill was signed into law in May of this year.

Coming Soon – Office Building Energy Efficiency. This bill requires the disclosure of energy use benchmarking data starting in January 2011. That means if you are going to purchase a commercial building, or even sign a lease in a commercial building, you can ask for information about the building's energy use. Why is this important? Because everyone pays energy bills and this benchmarking data will help measure the energy costs in one building over another. Over time, this approach will encourage building owners to invest in energy efficiency because an energy efficient building will be economically attractive to both buyers and tenants.

The Future – Residential Energy Efficiency? The specific buildings that are covered are "all non-residential and qualifying public agency buildings." At some point, I expect that a similar kind of benchmarking will be done for residential buildings as well. The European Union has an Energy Performance Certificate for homes. These must be in place for a building to be bought or sold. The attached image shows part of one of the certificates. I expect something along those lines will eventually be required in our state and – in time – in all states.

State versus Federal Legislation. I found it a bit of a challenge to read the 14 pages of this bill. Little did I know that state bills are nothing compared to the massive numbers of pages involved in federal legislation. The recently passed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the Waxman-Markey bill) has 1,090 pages in its final form. Wide margins and double-spaced output helps, no doubt! But still – a lot of words on a lot of pages…