San Francisco sets energy audit, benchmark requirements

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February 14, 2011—The city of San Francisco will require owners of commercial buildings of at least 10,000 square feet to conduct an energy audit every five years and benchmark the energy performance annually under an ordinance adopted recently.

“San Francisco needs to increase the energy and resource efficiency of existing buildings if we are going to meet our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets,” Mayor Edwin Lee said in a statement.

The city’s Climate Action Plan calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and lays out key action areas: energy efficiency, renewable energy, solid waste management and transportation.

Buildings, which consume about 70 percent of the electricity used in the U.S., present a ripe target for energy efficiency and carbon reduction initiatives. And the greatest opportunity for reductions is among existing structures, which far outnumber new buildings.

The commercial stock among non-residential buildings in San Francisco amounts to about 196 million square feet, and the ordinance applies to roughly 3,000 commercial buildings (the existing commercial structures that are 10,000 square feet or larger), encompassing more than 160 million square feet.

Under the measure, starting in October, owners of commercial properties that are larger than 50,000 square feet must file an annual report summarizing the energy performance of their buildings. Similar reporting requirements for commercial buildings ranging from 10,000 square feet to just under 50,000 square feet roll out through 2013.

In addition, starting next year, energy audits are to be conducted for existing commercial buildings every five years. Owners are required to disclose to the city when the audits were conducted; affirm that the audits were conducted properly; detail all retro-commissioning and retrofit measures that are available to the owner and have a payback period of three years or less; list the estimated costs and savings of the measures; and indicate which have been implemented. The auditing requirement will be phased in over a three-year period that runs to spring 2014.