Country Report on Building Energy Codes in the United States

Abstract

Buildings account for about 30% of all energy consumption globally and a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions. Building energy codes help ensure that new buildings use energy efficiently, and this can reduce building energy use by 50% or more compared to buildings designed without energy efficiency in mind. This is important because buildings typically last 30-50 years, and it is much less expensive and time-consuming to design for energy efficiency than to retrofit a building later. Based on the experience of the Asia-Pacific region, it is clear that building energy codes, when implemented, save energy and improve comfort in new buildings. By design, most building energy codes are cost-effective, saving consumers significant amounts of money on their energy bills. This report owes its existence to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. We would like to thank all the APP partner countries and experts who collaborated on this project. We are particularly grateful to Dr. Seung-Eon Lee at the Korean Institute of Construction Technology for his oversight of the APP project under which this report was prepared (BATF 06-24). We would also like to thank Mark Ginsberg, Jean Boulin and Marc LaFrance from the U.S. Department of Energy for their leadership and financial support of this work. Diana Shankle, manager of the PNNL Building Energy Codes Program, has provided moral and intellectual support for this project. Page Kyle reviewed this report. Alison Delgado and Kate Williams provided editorial assistance. We would also like to express our gratitude to several other individuals who supported or participated in the APP building energy code assessment in various capacities including

Further Opportunities to Reduce the Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Buildings

“…Therefore, these issues should be addressed at the planning, design, or construction phase. Policy instruments focused on these categories such as building codes and mandated certification like LEED are often implemented in agencies that oversee planning and construction (Cidell 2009;Halverson, Shui, and Evans 2009).…”

A systematic review of occupant behavior in building energy policy

“…Building energy regulations is one of the most influential and widely used ways to improve building energy performance [11][12][13].. The distribution of OB in specific population group represents the characteristics of this OB among the specific population [7,8].…”

“…Consequence interventions provide occupants with information following the performance of the behavior. The primary method relevant to this section is energy feedback, which consists of providing occupants with 12 information about their energy consumption patterns to positively influence those patterns. It is argued that feedback is an effective behavioral change mechanism as it highlights the relationship between an energy-related action and its result (e.g., change in energy use level), promoting a form or outcome expectancy or belief that behavior leads to a desirable outcome [74].…”

Synthesis Report on the Implementation of Building Energy Codes in China

“…China issued several tax incentives 9 (such as zero income tax and zero valueadded tax) to encourage the production of new wall materials produced from the large gangue, slag, fly ash, and bottom dreg of coal fired boilers (excluding blast furnace water dreg). and Usage Management of the Special Fund for New Wall Material, which clearly stipulated the collection target, criteria, procedure, supervision and inspection, and penalty for collecting the special fund to support new wall materials.…”