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Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins also use energy benchmarking

The city of Aspen plans to target energy use in its commercial and multi-family building sector in a new program called Building IQ. Commercial and residential buildings in Aspen account for 58% percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

The benchmarking program will entail collecting information on the larger buildings. The city has 205 commercial buildings that account for just over 2.6 million square feet, while the 625 multi-family buildings account for more than 5.5 million square feet.

A proposed ordinance scheduled to be considered by elected officials this spring would require collection of energy use with the local utilities, Aspen Electric, Holy Cross Energy and, for natural gas consumption, Black Hills Energy. The thinking, explains Laura Armstrong from the city’s climate action department, is that you cannot manage what you don’t measure. Ultimately, the goal will be to take steps to ratchet down energy use through improvements in the buildings and their controls.

Aspen joins Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins among the 31 jurisdictions across the United States that employ energy benchmarking as a tool for driving down building energy use.

Denver’s benchmarking law requires owners and managers of all buildings of more than 25,000 square feet in the city to annually assess and report the energy performance of their buildings. The information is published on a website, which enables the market to better value energy efficiency.

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See also: Tightening the Roaring Fork Valley’s energy belt

Pitkin County takes aim at high energy use of mansions

 

Allen Best
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