Building Energy Compliance Requirements are Coming Quickly – Get Ready! (Washington DC Edition)

You may have heard that there are laws all over the country requiring commercial buildings to reduce energy use to meet energy performance standards. Lack of compliance means substantial fines in some areas; you need to start work now. To make it more complicated, the law is different in each municipality.

NPC’s energy team can help and will be publishing a brief summary the requirement in each City and State to let you know what’s coming. Reach out if we can help!

Washington DC’s Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) is designed to support DC’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas/energy consumption by 50% by 2032.  The current cycle is from 2021 to 2026 and includes buildings >50,000sf.  Requirements of the BEPS are:

• Hotels must have a minimum ENERGY STAR Score of 54 by December 31, 2026.
• This can be accomplished through a performance-based or action-based (prescriptive) compliance pathway
• Benchmark and submit your building’s ENERGY STAR Score annually, with third-party verification every third year.  

Steep fines and court intervention will be used to enforce compliance:

• The maximum potential penalty is $10/sf or $7.5 million, adjusted according to progress toward the ENERGY STAR target.
• Penalties may also include judicial enforcement for damages, cost recovery, court fees, or an injunction.

The second BEPS cycle will extend to buildings >25,000 ft² in 2027 and a third cycle will include  buildings >10,000 ft² in 2033.  Energy reduction targets for those cycle are to be determined. 

Next Steps:

• Look up your building’s status here: D.C. Energy Benchmarking (buildingperformancedc.org)
• If your ENERGY STAR score is below 54, get an Energy Audit to start the process of figuring out what to do. 
• If you didn’t select a compliance pathway in 2023, check with the Department of Energy and Environment because it has been assigned
• Implement your plan (we can help with an ASHRAE energy audit, Energy Conservation Measure development, retrocommissioning, etc.) and benchmark your building’s performance annually.