This is the second in a series of five blogs breaking down the strategies proposed in the recently published SCALE 2030: Clean Buildings Transition Framework for Washington. The first blog explained Clean Energy Regions. This blog discusses the Performance as a Resource Ecosystem, which focuses on the demand side of the clean buildings market. The next blog will cover Rapid Market Transformation, which focuses on the supply side of the clean buildings market.

Washington’s buildings are more than places to live, work, and gather – they are also central to the state’s clean energy future. Residential and commercial buildings account for 77% of Washington’s electricity consumption and 42% of natural gas use, and comprise 26% of statewide emissions. To achieve the state’s 2050 climate goals, we must evolve buildings from passive energy consumers into efficient and active contributors to a cleaner, more resilient grid.

Achieving a clean energy transition for buildings calls for more than just new technologies or policies. It requires a coordinated system that aligns building performance with climate, energy, and equity goals. The Performance as a Resource (PAR) Ecosystem is one of five strategies in the SCALE 2030: Clean Buildings Transition Framework designed to develop that system.

The concept of treating building performance as a resource builds on the longstanding strategy of energy efficiency as a resource, in which reducing energy demand is pursued as an alternative to new energy generation and distribution. The evolution suggested here is to pursue overall building performance—including efficiency, adding demand flexibility, on-site energy generation and/or storage, and the comfort and health of occupants—instead of focusing solely on efficiency. With this shift, PAR recognizes building performance as a major asset to grid resilience, emissions reductions, and the public good.

Examples of the way that high-performing buildings have value include supporting the grid by automatically reducing energy usage during peak demand hours, serving as “resilience hubs” with battery-stored power during outages, or improving public health by producing no air pollution or carbon emissions.

The PAR Ecosystem is a comprehensive set of policies, targets, and programs designed to scale up high performance in Washington’s buildings. Its goal is to ensure that the state’s entire stock of residential and commercial buildings has a clear trajectory to modernization and high performance.

Critical Policy Levers

The PAR Ecosystem emphasizes the development of three key policy areas to create a performance-focused ecosystem around buildings. These are: 1) building performance standards, 2) energy codes, and 3) zero-emission appliance standards.

Washington achieved major progress towards clean buildings by passing the Clean Building Performance Standard (CBPS), which requires benchmarking, operation and maintenance programs, and energy management plans for many of the state’s largest buildings, with energy use intensity (EUI) requirements for those that are greater than 50,000 square feet. The PAR Ecosystem approach further advances this landmark policy by:

• Adopting and publishing EUI targets through 2050 on an accelerated timeline, enabling buildings owners and operators to plan ahead.
• Going beyond energy use to include metrics for emissions and coincident peak electric load, which would maximize benefits to the grid and align with state climate goals.
• Expanding the CBPS to include regulations such as efficiency scores and transparency for buildings under 20,000 square feet, ensuring a clear regulatory path for the entire building sector.

The Washington State Energy Code offers another tool to further improve building performance. The PAR Ecosystem approach aligns the code with Clean Building Performance Standard targets, simplifies the performance pathway option for code compliance in both residential and commercial buildings, and increases the demand flexibility built into the code through encouraging onsite renewables, batteries, and demand response.

In addition to policies focused on the buildings themselves, the PAR Ecosystem would adopt zero-emission appliance standards to ensure that space and water heating equipment is consistently replaced with clean equipment, thereby increasing demand and creating a more predictable market for suppliers.

Common Targets

The PAR Ecosystem approach establishes a set of statewide targets to measure progress towards decarbonizing buildings. These targets complement building-specific efficiency and emissions targets such as those in building performance standards by setting and tracking higher level goals across the entire building sector. Examples of the types of targets that need to be developed and tracked include total energy use of buildings in Washington, emissions from various building segments, capacity of distributed energy resources, and sales shares for essential equipment like heat pumps. An upcoming SCALE 2030 initiative will develop a scorecard of targets that comprise the PAR Ecosystem.

Critically, targets need to be aligned to existing 2050 emission-reduction goals, tracked annually, and shared publicly. Shared targets would provide building owners, tenants, service providers, utilities, advocates, and policy makers with a common understanding of where to focus efforts.

In addition to standardizing targets, a PAR Ecosystem approach employs strategies to interconnect clean buildings efforts and increase reporting transparency. This includes assigning universal building identification numbers to all buildings for use in processes such as permitting and real estate valuations; using Clean Building Performance Standard (CBPS) reporting to create standardized performance labeling; and sharing labels in a publicly disclosed database for transparent progress tracking.

Making Programs Work for Clean Buildings

A large network of incentive programs, primarily operated by utilities, already exists in Washington to support energy upgrades in buildings. While these programs have long emphasized energy efficiency savings, measured in kilowatt-hours and regulated by conservation targets set according to the Energy Independence Act (I-937), the PAR Ecosystem aligns programs to support the performance improvements and emissions reductions needed to comply with new policies, such as decarbonization goals and building performance standards.

This shift requires regulating and evaluating programs not only by energy savings but also by outcomes that integrate demand flexibility, building emissions, and energy use. Regulatory goals for programs would align with the EUI targets set in the CBPS. To meet the new goals, utilities could adopt and adapt standardized programs, making it easier for building owners across the state to understand programs and incentives. By aligning program outcomes with new performance and emissions goals, the PAR Ecosystem ensures that buildings have policy compliance support from their utility or other program providers.

A Systemic Path to 2050 goals

Decarbonizing Washington’s buildings requires more than standalone policies or programs – it calls for a coordinated, systemic approach. The PAR Ecosystem provides a strategic vision for such a system: one in which building performance is tracked toward statewide targets, policies are harmonized, and programs are designed to deliver aligned outcomes. By recognizing building performance as a resource, Washington can invest more strategically in the clean buildings transition and ensure that every building has a clear and supported pathway to achieve zero emissions.

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