Dive Brief:

• The Biden administration announced Monday its latest push to modernize building energy codes across the country: $90 million in competitive awards to support states, cities, tribal nations and their partner organizations.
• The awards will fund 25 projects to ensure buildings meet the latest energy efficiency standards, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and people’s energy bills, according to a U.S. Department of Energy news release. 
• The funding aims to help communities address traditional energy code barriers, including workforce training and the need to adapt model codes to specific regions, said Jeremy Williams, a DOE Building Technologies Office program manager who oversees projects related to building energy codes and standards.

Dive Insight:

The Biden administration views updated building energy codes as key to tackling climate change. 

The administration’s plan to decarbonize the building sector, unveiled by the DOE in April, counts stronger local codes among its recommendations. Late last month, the DOE announced it is awarding 19 state and local governments a total of more than $240 million to adopt and implement new and innovative building codes that increase energy efficiency. 

Beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions, more energy-efficient buildings can keep occupants safer during power outages that coincide with extreme heat or cold, the DOE found in a report published last year. Houston saw firsthand the danger of such an event earlier this summer, when power outages caused by Hurricane Beryl overlapped with temperatures in the high 90s.

However, building in compliance with stronger codes may cost more, which has prompted building industry players to push back on efforts to update codes. But more energy-efficient buildings also mean potential long-term energy bill savings for building occupants.

Another challenge is that municipalities may struggle to find and afford the building code professionals needed to oversee compliance, especially as experts warn of an aging code official workforce that is not being backfilled by younger workers, according to Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships. 

The federal funding announced Monday is part of the $225 million Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation initiative established under the 2021 infrastructure law. The first $90 million in awards under the initiative was announced for 27 projects last year.

Focus areas for this round of funding include needs in rural communities, tribal nations and “high-impact states that have more construction volume than anybody else and aren’t necessarily on the latest codes,” such as Texas and others in the Sun Belt, the DOE’s Williams said. 

This round of DOE funding also focuses more on utility and data partnerships, Williams said. There is a “big interplay” between building performance standards, which regulate energy use in existing buildings, and data from utility meters, since that information is essential to achieving such policies’ goals, said Ram Narayanamurthy, deputy director of DOE’s Building Technologies Office. Meter data can also be used to determine whether state and local building energy codes are effective by offering insight on the energy use of buildings constructed to meet updated standards. “That helps us validate the impact of those standards,” Williams said.

New codes need to accommodate the technologies increasingly included in new buildings, like on-site energy generation, electric vehicle charging and energy storage systems, Williams said. “There's a major trend where codes are starting to adapt and evolve to incorporate these new technologies,” he said, pointing to California as an example of where this is happening.

Awardees are taking different approaches with their slice of funding. For example, the National Association of State Energy Officials will establish a “replicable” way to evaluate the effect of energy codes on resilience, according to the DOE. The organization will pilot the strategy in Arizona and Florida as well as collect data on technology trends and practices that can inform education and training programs for industry players.

Another partnership awarded funding will support the implementation of energy codes in Oklahoma and Texas, the latter of which has seen more homes built in recent years than any other state, according to the DOE. That partnership is led by the Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit New Buildings Institute. 

Meanwhile, the California Energy Commission will establish a network of credentialed energy code experts to support local governments and the construction industry in reviewing compliance documents during the permit application and plan-review phase of construction.