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The American Council on Energy Efficiency Economics (“ACEEE”) released the following policy brief in January 2023:
Identifying states that will benefit most from updated building energy laws (“policy briefs”)
of policy brief The U.S. Department of Energy is noting $45 million in funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 (“BIL”) to help states adopt and implement the latest building energy legislation. Additional funding for state adoption of the updated energy code includes:
- $225 million in BIL funding over 5 years
- $1 billion funding from the Inflation Reduction Act
of policy brief takes the following position:
. . residents and businesses in all states can benefit from reducing energy use in their buildings, but states with older energy regulations (or no energy regulations at all) have lower efficiency. improved to the maximum.
An analysis of publicly available data was said to have been conducted to identify the 10 states with the best statewide codes to avail of future funding.
One of those states is Arkansas. The other nine are:
- Louisiana
- north carolina
- Minnesota
- Virginia
- Tennessee
- south carolina
- Wisconsin
- kentucky
- Oklahoma
Please note that the State of Arkansas is currently undergoing a public review of its Energy Code for the purpose of updating. (Previous blog post here.)
Factors said to have been identified in identifying the states believed to benefit the most include:
- Energy cost savings expected by updating both residential/commercial building energy codes to the latest model energy codes
- Review the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions of existing buildings in each state to identify building stock that could benefit most from improvements
- Construction activities, as energy legislation primarily affects new homes/buildings
- Assessment of state climate policies with specific greenhouse gas emissions targets to assess policy landscape and what is needed to meet 2030 goals
A copy of the policy brief can be downloaded here.
