Good day and welcome to ASHRAE's Government Affairs Update. Along with the Government Affairs Webpage, these periodic updates feature information on government affairs-related activities of interest to ASHRAE members and others interested in the built environment. Archives of previous updates are available from the Government Affairs Webpage (http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy).
Please pass this information on to interested colleagues
who also may subscribe from the ASHRAE Government Affairs Webpage. Should you
wish to unsubscribe, information appears at the end of this Email.
If you have any recommendations regarding content, or
have questions about or would like to participate in Washington Office
activities, please contact ASHRAE Government Affairs staff at (202) 833-1830 or
WashDC@ashrae.org.
ASHRAE Government Affairs Update, 12/16/2011
- Congress Nears a Down
Payment on New CBECS
- Congress Passes National
Defense Bill – Requires New Report on Standards 189.1-2011 and 90.1-2010
for Military Construction and Repair
- DOE Releases New Version
of Energy Modeling Software
- Workshop Held on DOE’s
Proposed Commercial Building Energy Asset Rating Program
Congress Nears a Down Payment on New CBECS
Unless plans unravel, today (or shortly thereafter),
Congress will pass a funding deal that combines several bills into a single
package, and averts a partial government shutdown. Tucked away in this massive,
near $1 trillion bill, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law,
is a down payment to conduct the next edition of the Commercial Buildings
Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS).
Conducted about once every four years, CBECS is a national
sample survey that collects information on the stock of U.S. commercial
buildings, their energy-related building characteristics, and their energy
consumption and expenditures. The Survey is administered by the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, and is a prime example of one of those little known
programs that underpin several public and private sector buildings programs and
activities. For instance, CBECS data help form the basis for understanding the
patterns of energy use, are used by ASHRAE’s standards, and are utilized by the
ENERGY STAR Buildings program, ASHRAE’s Building Energy Quotient (Building eQ)
building energy labeling program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) for Existing Buildings, Green Globes®, and many others.
ASHRAE and the building industry have been relying on CBECS
data that is nearly a decade old (the latest data is from 2003), and without
assistance from Congress, a new CBECS would not occur, and because there is no
other survey like it, the needed information on building energy use could not
otherwise be easily obtained. As a result, ASHRAE has been leading a coalition
of building industry stakeholders to work with key Members of Congress to help
ensure that a new CBECS is conducted.
For additional information, please contact ASHRAE’s
Washington Office at WashDC@ashrae.org.
Congress Passes National Defense Bill – Requires New
Report on Standards 189.1-2011 and 90.1-2010 for Military Construction and
Repair
This week Congress passed the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA). President Barack Obama is expected to sign the
bill into law. The NDAA requires the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to issue
a new report on the energy efficiency and sustainability standards used by DoD
for military construction and repair. This report will include a cost-benefit
analysis, return on investment, and long-term payback for ASHRAE Standard
189.1-2011 Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings
Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010 Energy
Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, and
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver, gold, and platinum
certification, as well as LEED volume certification. Other, non-specified,
American National Standards Institute-accredited standards may also be examined
in the report as well.
ASHRAE assisted the House and Senate Armed Services
Committees in drafting the ASHRAE building standards section of this bill, and
many of our recommendations were incorporated into the final bill. ASHRAE has
already reached out to DoD staff to begin understanding how this report may be
assembled, and will be involved with the report, to the extent possible.
DOE Releases New Version of Energy Modeling Software
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released the
latest version of its building energy modeling software EnergyPlus, which
calculates the energy required to heat, cool, ventilate, and light a building.
EnergyPlus is used by architects and engineers to design more efficient
buildings, by researchers to investigate new building and system designs, and
by policymakers to develop energy codes and standards. Advanced physics
calculations within EnergyPlus allow it to model a wide range of residential
and commercial buildings and HVAC system types, including passive building
designs and low-energy systems.
EnergyPlus v7.0 features many enhancements and has 25 to 40
percent faster execution speeds on a wide variety of models. EnergyPlus is a
part of DOE's strategy of Building Energy Modeling (BEM), a key technology that
helps achieve DOE's mission of significantly reducing energy consumption in new
buildings and retrofits. In addition to helping architects and engineers find
low-energy building designs, BEM is used in the development of building energy
efficiency codes and standards, in the creation of energy design guides, in the
certification of building energy performance, and other applications.
EnergyPlus v7.0 is available free of charge for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
Source code licenses are also available. For additional information, please see
the DOE press release.
Workshop Held on DOE’s Proposed Commercial Building
Energy Asset Rating Program
Last week the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) held a
workshop on their proposed Commercial Building Energy Asset Rating (AR)
Program. ASHRAE attended this two-day meeting, and previously submitted
comments to an earlier request for comments from DOE. ASHRAE’s comments can be
viewed at http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy/page/1348.
Click on the link titled “ASHRAE Comments to DOE on DOE’s Development of a
Voluntary National Asset Rating Program for Commercial Buildings”, under the
Letters and Testimony section of the Webpage.
DOE expects to issue a request for information on the design
of their pilot AR Program in late February/early March, and to begin the pilot
in April, 2012.
To subscribe see http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-5625304-11585482.10fe5a7e5ddd5e9964a3c5e290f7df1c@listman.ashrae.org
ASHRAE Washington Office
1828 L Street, NW * Suite 906 * Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-1830 * fax: (202) 833-0118 * washdc@ashrae.org
http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy
No comments:
Post a Comment