At the September 2021 RTF meeting, members approved development of a Commercial Whole Building Performance Standards White Paper. The paper will be structured around identifying specific interventions, with a focus on approaches with real-world demonstrations of effectiveness and cost, generalizing applicability, using the CBSA, subcommittee judgement and/or simulations to extrapolate potential impacts and costs to related building types, and developing benchmarks, by estimating potential savings at different price points and using those results to inform savings benchmarks for different scenarios. It will be targeted at programs, with the hope of informing planning, targeting and messaging as well as at program planners, as the analysis could inform conservation potential.
The initial scope, which could be adjusted based on appetite and workflow, would be limited to space types with regular energy uses dominated by HVAC and lighting, one or two demonstrated approaches with heat pumps and gas heat variants, lots of engineering judgement to generalize demonstrations to related applications, and explore impacts at different price points.