COMPLIANCE
Denver building owners face fines for continued use of natural gas
By Paul M . Seby & Mathew K . Tieslau
The new year brings with it new legal expectations from the city and county of Denver that require all existing commercial , multifamily , and public buildings 25,000 square feet and larger to comply with stringent “ energy efficiency ” mandates . These requirements are known as the “ Energize Denver ” program , whose stated purpose is for all existing and new Denver “ covered buildings ” to dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions ( GHG ) to zero by 2040 . Energize Denver has no soft initial implementation phase for covered building owners to do what might be more cost-effective or achievable . Instead , the first mandatory compliance period starts Jan . 1 , 2024 , and requires immediate and costly building retrofits . Denver plans to enforce the requirements with the imposition of steep penalties , liens for noncompliance , and mandated compliance status disclosures prior to any future sale of any “ covered building .”
Where do GHG emissions in such buildings come from ? They come from the use of natural gas for building heating and hot water purposes . How does one reduce ( or eliminate ) such GHG emissions ? A building owner either foregoes the use of such modern amenities for heating or cooking or convert the building to use more costly ( and possibly less effective ) electricity .
Denver ’ s Office of Climate Action , Sustainability , and Resiliency (“ CASR ”) administers Energize Denver , which has two main components . First , CASR requires covered building owners to submit annual benchmarking reporting their building ’ s energy usage on an annual basis . Second , CASR has set the final building performance standards that covered buildings must meet by 2030 . CASR also sets interim compliance targets for calendar years 2024 and 2027 , which are determined by drawing a “ straight line ” from a covered building ’ s 2019 baseline Energy Use Intensity ( EUI ) score to the final 2030 EUI building performance standard . Both the annual benchmarking and the building performance standards under Energize Denver are expressed using an EUI metric , which is essentially the covered building ’ s energy use per square foot ( expressed as kilo British thermal units (“ kBtu ”) per square foot ). Benchmarking submittals utilize the Energy Star ( a federal energy program administered by the Environmental Protection Agency ) online reporting system , in which building owners input annual energy usage and the EUI metric is then calculated . Covered buildings are assigned 2024 , 2027 , and 2030 EUI compliance targets based on property type ( e . g ., office buildings will have different EUI targets than hospitals or multifamily housing buildings ).
22 | TRENDS JANUARY 2024 www . aamdhq . org