Ask an Expert: May 2025 - New Buildings Institute

We’ve launched a new “Ask an Expert” segment in our newsletter, allowing you to tap into the expertise of NBI’s team of researchers, analysts, policy experts, engineers, and outreach facilitators. Do you have questions about net zero buildings, embodied carbon, or energy efficiency best practices? Submit your questions, and we’ll share the answers in our following newsletter and social media!

This week, we’re answering your questions about building performance standards and how to foster collaboration between utilities, state agencies, and stakeholders to support policy outcomes. We discuss:

Utilities and data sharing
Building momentum for policies with high up-front costs
Demonstrating the impact of building performance standards

1. What are some best practices to get utilities to share data with large commercial customers?

Facilitating utility data sharing is crucial for effective energy benchmarking and building performance standards. While utilities often face internal data limitations, progress is achievable through strategic engagement at the state or local level. It is also important to understand that utilities don’t often have benchmarking information at their fingertips, as data is often metered at the customer level and not always aggregated by building.

Best Practices

State-Level Mandates: State legislatures, leveraging their oversight of utilities through public service commissions, are best positioned to mandate whole-building data access for building owners. State mandates can bypass utility cost recovery concerns and internal data infrastructure challenges.
Clear Guidelines and Support: State mandates should include clear guidelines on data aggregation thresholds, quality standards, and ease of access. Providing utilities with technical assistance and financial support (e.g., grants for solution development, as seen in Minnesota and Colorado) can also help move these practices forward. Minnesota created a $750,000 grant for solution development for non-IOU utilities that need to provide the data, and Colorado enabled non-IOUs to apply for grant funding from the Colorado Clean Energy Fund, the state’s green bank, to develop solutions to meet the requirements. Additionally, Colorado, New Jersey, and Oregon held cohort calls with utilities to provide guidance and support related to solution development.
Engagement and Regulatory Clarification: Even without mandates, active state engagement with utilities and regulatory clarification on cost recovery mechanisms can drive voluntary progress. States, jurisdictions, and stakeholders should work directly with utilities to communicate needs and concerns.
Encourage and Support Advanced Metering Infrastructure: For many utilities, aging metering infrastructure hinders better data collection, aggregation, and reporting procedures. States and jurisdictions can support the rollout and installation of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) through policies and funding. They can also coordinate the AMI rollout with other related policies like benchmarking and building performance standards. Checkout the Green Button initiative and Orange Button Solar Data Standard for information on utility support of energy data access and online PV marketplaces.
Leveraging Emerging State Initiatives: Support and promote initiatives like model state legislation for data sharing, statewide energy data hubs (like New York’s IEDR), and greenhouse gas disclosure requirements, which creates a growing demand for this data.

By focusing on state-level policy and providing utilities with clear frameworks and support, we can effectively unlock the valuable building performance data needed to drive energy efficiency and sustainability in the commercial sector.

Resources for Action

Guidance for Utilities on Providing Whole-Building Energy Data to Enable Benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager®: Summarizes best practices for utilities providing customers with data.
Model Law for Statewide Utility Data Access: Model legislative framework and guidance that supports efficient energy management and data access while safeguarding ratepayers’ privacy and facilitating cooperation among utilities, building owners, and customers. Developed by the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP).

2. How can we advance building policies that have upfront costs but will be paid back in the first few years? Specifically in red states, what policy pathways or stakeholder engagement strategies have been successful?

Cost Studies

Complete or draw from cost studies that have been completed on BPS and Benchmarking policies to better inform stakeholders and policymakers about costs and benefits.

It can also be helpful to frame the costs and benefits from each stakeholder’s point of view: for example, a building owner might face an increase in upfront cost but result in savings for the tenant. Spelling these out for each group when engaging can help them understand their part of the puzzle.
Consider the full scope of effects and benefits realized from building performance policies. Policy programs that target and support workforce development and small business can offset costs for building owners while improving skilled labor and creating jobs.

Form a Working Group

Individuals directly impacted by a policy are often the most aware of the opportunities and challenges therein. As discussed in this resource from the City Energy Project, effective stakeholder engagement in policy design can ensure that “policies are crafted thoughtfully and with full consideration of local circumstances and concerns. Effective stakeholder engagement can also help foster goodwill and cooperation between the implementing body and the regulated parties, creating the best environment for maximizing mutual benefit and future compliance.” An example of this is the Clean Buildings Workgroup, formed by Washington State, whose members included representatives from healthcare, education, state social and health services agencies, commercial building owners and operators, and local governments.

Financing and Funds

Set up funding mechanisms for retrofits, energy audits, and metering to help reduce first costs and to build confidence. Revolving fund mechanisms in which savings from completed projects help pay upfront costs for subsequent investments are compelling. Once the seed funding is in place, the program can be self-sustaining. Some examples of funding/incentive programs and policies include:

3. Do you have specific data on this with Building Performance Standards (BPS) or benchmarking that you could share?

Many cost studies have been published on building performance standards (BPS) and benchmarking policies. Some of these include, but are not limited to:

Preliminary Financial Analysis of WA State Building Energy Performance Standard – SBW Consulting
- Completed in 2023, it sets out preliminary costs for compliance with WA State BPS.
Translating Potential into Performance: Assessing Compliance Costs and Policy Improvements to Maximize Building Performance Standards – ACEEE
- Expands upon the preliminary cost study for WA State BPS. Key Findings, Average Costs Per SF: Benchmarking $1.83, Energy Management Plans $0.42, O&M Program $0.43, Audits $0.74, Other $1.56, totaling $4.45 for cost of compliance.
Getting 97 Done: A Plan to Mobilize New York City’s Large Buildings to Fight Climate Change – City of New York
- Completed in 2023, reporting on the compliance status of buildings in NYC under LL97. It discusses city-wide compliance costs, financing and funding actions, and technical outreach being carried out by the city.
Cost Analysis of Large Property Carbon Emissions Performance Standards – ECOnorthwest
- Completed in 2025 for the City of Portland, this cost analysis broke down what it would take to achieve the City Council’s adopted goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Cost Study of the Building Decarbonization Code – New Buildings Institute
- Completed in 2022, this is a robust resource focused on electrification, which can be a key method to improve the efficiency of a building and comply with a BPS.
Money Talk: The Cost of Compliance for Building Performance Standards (2nd in series) –Climate Urgency Climate Action newsletter
- This newsletter from August 2024 is a thorough overview of the costs of building performance standards and benchmarking. Written by Anna Kelly, Director of Innovation and Strategy at SBW Consulting.