Thoughts on ComplianceEXISTING BUILDING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY REPORT (IEPR) WORKSHOP

JULY 27, 2015

Bob Barks – Madera, California California Certified Plans Examiner

Compliance Committee Chair - Western HVAC Performance Alliance

CALBO Energy Advisory Committee

Questions          How can compliance be assessed and improved?          Why are compliance documents required and how can they be improved?          What can be done to reduce the transactional cost of compliance?

What Is Compliance?

General Understanding of Compliance

• Paper document.• Sign-off by jurisdiction.• Installation per manufacturer standards.• Installation per code. • It’s the law.• Something someone else does.

What should compliance be?

• Simple• Specific• Measurable• Scalable

Why are compliance documents required and how can they be improved?

Why?• Provide specific measures for new work.• Document what work was done, who did it and how/whether it matched the specification.• Provide a database for future analysis and research.• Provide property owners specific energy information on their property.

How to improve?• Simplify.• Educate.• Automation tools.

What can be done to reduce the transactional cost of compliance?

Reduce confusion.◦ Clearly define compliance.

◦ What specifically is the measure of compliance for each project?◦ How is it specific, measurable and scalable?

◦ Education. ◦ Start training at least 6 months before code changes are to take effect.◦ Integrate energy standards into normal construction practices by all trades and design professionals.

◦ In many cases it is still thought of as something added after design and construction. Not part of design and construction.

Simplification.◦ Reduce documents to absolute minimum and scale to project size.

◦ (Example: HVAC change-out CF-1R, CF-2R and CF-3R on a single 8 ½ x 11 page total.)◦ Automation tools.

◦ Use registries and databases for all but summary information.◦ Multiple actors work within a single document, but only need access their specific area of responsibility.◦ Make coordination automatic and invisible to the operator. No special knowledge required to use.◦ Multiple platform capability.

How can compliance be assessed and improved?• Mine large data sets and use trend analysis to measure & track change over time.

• Localize by climate zone, city, geographically similar areas, etc.• Mine and audit current document registry information.• Regularly conduct statistically significant field surveys to measure and verify specific measures.• Provide compliance tools (and FUNDING) to jurisdictions to strengthen enforcement AND to assist

the public in understanding and meeting code requirements.• Create public education programs to demonstrate the value of energy code requirements.

• Create understanding of the financial benefit of energy savings both personally and for the economy as a whole.• Energy certification and continuing education requirements for professional licenses.• Create energy specialist hiring incentives for construction related businesses.• Engineer the complexity out of compliance.

• (Focus on overall project quality. Not specific energy measures or documents.)• Link cost of ownership and asset value to building efficiency.

Keep It Simple.SO PEOPLE DON’T HAVE EXCUSES NOT TO DO IT.