Our Industry

What You Need to Know: Denver Energy Ordinance

By Patrick Meade

WHAT IS THE DENVER ENERGY ORDINANCE?

The Denver Energy Ordinance was approved unanimously in November 2021, requires all commercial (and multi-family) buildings, greater than 25,000 square feet, to reduce their energy consumption. As the process begins there will be short-term goals for 2024 and 2027 with a goal of getting to 30% energy savings by 2030. Denver’s goal is to achieve net-zero energy by the year 2040 and these buildings account for just under half (49%) of all Denver’s greenhouse gas emissions. Not only will this reduction in energy consumption have a crucial impact on the local scale, it will also contribute and promote the importance of our climate on both a national and global scale.

The Climate Action Sustainability & Resiliency team (CASR) has established a set of rules and regulations that building owners must abide by. This includes providing benchmarking data from 2019 by June 1, 2022, and interim Energy Use Intensity (EUI) requirements with a baseline that was set at 100 in 2019. The EUIs must be at 83 by 2024 and 66 by 2027.

We are committed to utilizing our sustainability and energy conservation expertise to support this movement. We are listed on the Denver website as an approved benchmark service provider. This means we can help building owners from the start of a project, to report their current energy use for benchmarking data. Our knowledge, however, goes far beyond reporting. From there, we can analyze building infrastructure, and coordinate with Xcel Energy along with state legislation to find energy rebates granted for improving MEP infrastructure.

We can provide expert knowledge and insight into what improvements are needed when upgrading MEP infrastructure with a focus on energy conservation. It may surprise you to learn how much capital can be saved from a reduction in energy usage in the long term!

ABOUT ME

I am a Project Manager and energy advocate with our Denver Team. I am listed on the directory of service providers for the Denver Energy Ordinance. Interested in working with me? Connect with me here.