Madison, Wisconsin, has kicked off the second year of its Building Energy Savings Program, which requires large commercial buildings to benchmark their energy use annually and complete building tune-ups every four years.
Commercial buildings account for approximately 45% of Madison’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Tuesday release. The city says that benchmarking and energy tune-ups are “proven strategies for reducing energy waste, saving money, and lowering emissions,” noting that buildings that consistently benchmark are able to reduce their annual energy use by up to 10%. Tune-ups cut energy use by an average of 12%, the city says.
The program, which currently applies to commercial buildings over 100,000 square feet, is expanding as part of its phase-in and will require buildings over 50,000 square feet to also benchmark energy use by June 30, 2025.
“You need to have good data to set targets,” Cliff Majersik, senior advisor at the Institute for Market Transformation, which assists cities with developing and executing benchmarking and building performance standards, said in an interview. “You need to have good transparency so everyone knows how everyone else is performing, and they know that they're being treated fairly.”
Majersik said good data collection by building operators is the foundation for improving standards. “They can benchmark their building using the EnergyStar system, and they can comply with building performance standards, and they can qualify for tax incentives and things like that,” he said. “Every step of the way, you want to make sure that the data is being kept accurate so you don't have a garbage in, garbage out situation.”
Madison is also extending the compliance deadline for building tune-ups, which require operators to check and adjust building energy systems like lighting and HVAC controls to ensure the systems are running efficiently “without wasting energy or money,” the city said in Tuesday’s release.
“The deadline extension provides building owners and managers with additional time to plan for tune-ups, identify a tune-up specialist, train staff as a tune-up specialist if needed, achieve alternative compliance pathways, and gather building data,” the city said.
The extension pushes the deadline for these tune-ups to October 30, 2026, for buildings 100,000 square feet and larger. Buildings between 50,000 and 99,999 square feet have until October 30, 2027.
To provide flexibility to building owners and operators, the city is offering “early bird tune-up submissions” in 2025. The city says this submission is a good option for buildings eligible for an alternative compliance pathway in 2025 but not in 2026.
Operators have until October 30 to take advantage of the early bird submission or apply for an alternative pathway that demonstrates they have a high-efficiency building or have recently taken actions that substantially improved their building’s efficiency.
The city will be hosting virtual training sessions over the next four months to guide participants through the benchmarking and reporting process, with more details to come, per the release.
