ASHRAE to Launch Building Performance Label

By Allyson Wendt
This article was originally published in BuildingGreen.com

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has developed a rating label for buildings, which it will launch at its annual meeting in June 2009. The label is the result of collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program and is designed to expand the reach of that program and prepare the industry for the possibility of mandatory energy reporting.

Based on Energy Star ratings but applicable to all building types, the ASHRAE label would grade both design and actual performance. A brief label would display these ratings and assign a qualitative grade such as “average” or “high-performance.” More in-depth information, including operating schedule, indoor air quality testing, and energy-efficient design features, would also be available for each building. The operational portion of the ASHRAE label would need to be updated each year.

Kent Peterson, P.E., the past president of ASHRAE who oversaw the development of the label, says the point of the label is to encourage better energy reporting in the industry. Although the U.S. has “possibly the best data set in the world,” in the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), Peterson says, the data is still incomplete and inaccurate in many cases. Since Energy Star ratings are based on CBECS data, they are limited to the building types included in the database. ASHRAE hopes to include all building types covered by ASHRAE 90.1 in its labeling program but has not yet clarified how it will do so. By covering most building types and preparing a robust building grading system, ASHRAE would be keeping pace with efforts in the European Union (EU) to track energy performance. “We envision regulatory requirements at a state level and eventually a federal level that won’t be much different from what you see in the EU,” where performance reporting is mandatory, said Peterson.

Peterson notes that the new label is not designed to compete with Energy Star. “If ASHRAE was doing this without EPA, it would definitely cause confusion,” he said, but because the organizations are working together he believes that ASHRAE will simply be bringing the Energy Star methodology to new building types and an international audience. Aligning the ASHRAE label with the EU labels has the further advantage of preparing the industry for required energy reporting. “Regulation is coming here eventually, and it’s better if we get out ahead of the curve,” Peterson said.

Source: BuildingGreen, LLC

 

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