Texas State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) Benchmarking and Disclosure tool for communities

AN ORDINANCE, , OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES, ,

ESTABLISHING THE REQUIREMENT THAT SHALL: BENCHMARK ITS BUILDING ENERGY AND WATER DATA AND MAKE BUILDING PERFORMANCE DATA AVAILABLE TO ALL BUILDING STAKEHOLDERS.

Which Whereas Statements would you like to include?

Whereas, the City of has a strong history of leading by example, implementing cost-effective and practical energy efficiency projects that grow the economy and improve the bottom line of building tenants and owners.

Whereas, the City Council recognizes the value of energy and water benchmarking and transparency as tools to enable effective management of resources.

Whereas, the City desires to raise awareness of energy performance through information and transparency, with a goal of unlocking energy and cost savings opportunities and health benefits for businesses and residents.

Whereas, the increased benchmarking and transparency of building data, with the subsequent likely improvement in optimized operations of municipal and commercial buildings will expand opportunities for skilled jobs in construction trades, engineering, operations, sales, and innovative technologies thereby contributing to stable, long-term economic growth.

Whereas, the City recognizes the value of regular energy and water building audits to improve building performance, reduced resource consumption, save money, enhance stewardship of natural resources, create economic development opportunities and keep competitive.

Whereas, the City recognizes the value of building benchmarking and data transparency to help buildings reduce resource consumption and improve building performance, save money, and reduce carbon pollution while enhancing stewardship of natural resources creating economic development opportunities, and keeping competitive.

Whereas, increasing energy and water efficiency of buildings will significantly contribute to better public health and welfare through improved air quality and the reduction of natural resource consumption, particularly water, thereby enhancing the resilience of the community and improving quality of life.

Whereas, the City finds it to be in the interest of the public and general welfare to adopt a standard policy regarding the efficiency use of energy and water as it supports economic development, improves the economic standing of the community, produces better public health outcomes and reduces emissions of greenhouse gasses thereby benefiting the City’s citizens and businesses and furthering the Mayor’s sustainability initiatives for .

Definitions

"Department" means the City of Department of

"Official" means the of the Department of

“Covered City Building” means a building as determined by the Department of General Services

With gross square feet or more; and
That is owned by the city or for which the city regularly pays all or part of the annual energy and water bills.

“Covered Non-City Building” means a building, other than covered city building,

With gross square feet or more, as determined by the Department of Building and Safety; or
area or more as determined by the Department of Building and Safety.

“Covered Building” means any covered city building or covered non-city building.

“Financial Hardship” (of a building) means a building that:

Had arrears of property taxes or water or wastewater charges that resulted in the building's inclusion, within the prior two years, on the city’s annual tax lien sale list; or
Has a court appointed receiver in control of the asset due to financial distress; or
Is owned by a financial institution through default by the borrower; or
Has been acquired by a deed in lieu of foreclosure; or
Has a senior mortgage subject to a notice of default.

What exceptions will you allow?

Benchmarking is not required if the building meets one of or more of these criteria. Please select which exceptions you would like include:

Qualified benchmarker

"Qualified benchmarker" is required - Choose this option if you feel that someone, such as a certified energy manager, P.E. or other properly trained, A Qualified Benchmarer means an individual or entity that possesses a benchmarking certification or other credential or credentials approved by the director. WE can then provide them a list of ones that would make the qualified.

Schedule for Covered Buildings to Submit Data

Each ordinance should have specific time frame for when buildings must submit data. In many cases, cities will phase in the size of the buildings. For example, the first set of buildings to report in year one would be 250,000 square feet or larger, the second year would be 100,000 square feet or larger, etc.

Also, when setting the date, ensure there is enough time for the buildings to get their data together and submitted into EPA Portfolio Manager. It is normal to give them at least 6 months to one year, before the first submission is required.

for all covered city building with or more gross square feet;
for all covered non-city buildings with or more gross square feet;
for
for

Verifying Data

Verifying data ensures that the data is accurately collected, inputted and uploaded into EPA Portfolio Manager. There are a variety of ways to verify data. Here are three options to consider.

Before making a benchmarking submission the owner shall run all automated data quality checker functions available within the benchmarking tool, and shall correct all missing or incorrect information identified.

Prior to the first benchmarking deadline, and prior to each third benchmarking deadline thereafter, the owner of a covered building shall ensure that reported benchmarking information for that year is verified by a licensed professional. Such verification shall be in a form of a stamped and signed statement by a licensed professional attesting to the accuracy of the information. The owner of a covered building shall produce such statement for the most recent year in which verification of reported benchmarking information was required, in a form prescribed by rule, upon a written request by the Director.

All benchmarking submissions must be reviewed and verified by a qualified benchmarker every one year. The qualified benchmarker must verify data utilizing the ENERGY STAR^® Data Verification Checklist. Data verification must be documented in each building’s ENERGY STAR^® Portfolio Manager profile in the “Property Notes” section. Checklist must be made available to director upon request

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE AND ANALYSIS OF BENCHMARKING INFORMATION.

The official shall make available to the public, on the internet, the shared benchmarking information for the previous calendar year according to the following schedule:
1. For each covered city building, no later than , and each thereafter; and
2. For each covered non-city building with or more gross square feet, no later than , and each thereafter.
3. For each covered non-city building with or more gross square feet, no later than , and each thereafter.
4. For each covered non-city building with or more gross square feet, no later than , and each thereafter.
5. All cities are considering a variety of ways to share this data with the public. The ordinance requires that a certain time frame be established for when this data will be shared. The following allows you to set the time line for this data sharing.
The official shall make available to the public no later than , , , and any subsequent years at the discretion of the official, a report on the benchmarking of covered buildings, including an assessment of compliance rates, an assessment of accuracy and issues affecting accuracy, summary energy and water consumption statistics, and trends observed, including an assessment of changes across the portfolio over time.
The City may disclose data from benchmarking submissions to a third party for academic or other non-commercial research purposes provided that such data is anonymized.
The City may provide non-anonymized data from benchmarking submissions to any utility serving a covered building or to any federal, state, or city-managed energy efficiency program, provided that the data will be used only for purposes of targeting incentives provided through energy efficiency programs, and provided that the City has first obtained the covered building owner’s written or electronic permission to share the data with the utility or energy efficiency program. Where the building owner’s permission can be granted electronically through acceptance of a default option, the City shall provide a clearly delineated option for owners of covered buildings to choose to opt out of granting this permission.
All third parties receiving anonymized or non-anonymized data from benchmarking submissions shall sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the city stipulating terms for acceptable use of the data, including assurances that such data shall not be disclosed to other entities, before receiving such data.
Exception: To the extent allowable under applicable law, the Director shall not make readily available to the public any individually-attributable reported benchmarking information from the first calendar year that a covered building is required to benchmark.
Exception: To the extent allowable under applicable law, the Director shall not make readily available to the public any individually-attributable reported benchmarking information pertaining to a covered building that contains a data center, television studio, or trading floor that together exceed 10% of the gross square footage of any such building until the commissioner determines that the benchmarking tool can make adequate adjustments for such facilities. When the Director determines that the benchmarking tool can make such adjustments, it shall report such determination to the mayor and the city council.

My Community has a regulated utility or co-op that can provide the data

Notification and Posting

Between and of each of the first years during which an owner is required to provide a benchmarking submission, the official shall notify those owners of their obligation to benchmark performance for the previous calendar year, provided that the failure of the official to notify any such owner shall not affect the obligation of such owner to benchmark.

By of each year, the official shall publicly post on the internet a list of all covered buildings that must provide a benchmarking submission to the official during the following year.

Violations and Enforcement

What will be the penalties be?

How many day from the benchmarking due date will a second notice of violation be issued?

What is the maximum cost of a penalty?

$

.00

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