Reminder – The Next Building Energy Codes and Standards Committee (BECS) Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, January 15-16, 2025 in Greenville,  South Carolina at the Embassy Suites Greenville Downtown Hotel. For meeting registration click here: BECS Committee Meeting.

ASHRAE Proposing Addenda to the ASHRAE 90.1 Standard for Public Review that Negatively Impact Natural Gas Applications – Comments Due January 27, 2025

ASHRAE has posted 2 addenda,  bi and bk (below),  to the 90.1 Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings that if approved , would negatively impact the direct use of natural gas in commercial buildings.  The drafts can be reviewed at: http://osr.ashrae.org/.  Also attached are bi and bk for easy access. The public review runs for a 45-day period starting December 13, 2024, and ending January 27, 2025. They are provided as follows:

1st Public Review of BSR/ASHRAE/IES Addendum bi to ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2022, Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings

Addendum bi replaces the metric for determining compliance with Appendix G from energy cost to site energy use.

AGA Concern – addenda would change the compliance metric requirement from a cost basis to a site energy consumption basis that disregards the energy losses of electricity from generation to the end use.

1st Public Review of BSR/ASHRAE/IES Addendum bk to ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2022, Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings

Addendum bk establishes that compliance with Section 6.5 (prescriptive HVAC) and 6.3 (for the simplified HVAC approach) requires HVAC systems serving building areas with both heating and cooling to be “space heating heat pump primary” systems.

AGA Concern – Requires that compliance in the prescriptive path be based on space heating electric heat pumps as the primary system thus excluding natural gas heating systems as a primary system that is currently permitted in this compliance path.