Codes and Standards 

The Building Technologies Program advocates for the creation of building codes, standards and guidelines that push for greater energy efficiency in both commerical and residential buildings.  These codes and standards must be easily measurable on a standard metric, be continually updated to reflect the latest technological developments and be easily understood by builders, designers, buyers and all other relevant stakeholders.

High Performance Affordable Building Metrics.  This report summarizes the best available standards and metrics, makes recommendations on how performance should be defined and measured for each attribute, and offers suggestions on high performance benchmarks for each attribute.  In addition, as the goal of this report is to provide a starting point for discussion during the metrics creation process that must follow, this report contains recommendations on the development process and resulting metrics.   

Implementing Energy Efficiency in Building Codes Based on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.  Written by Amit Talipatra, the purpose of this policy analysis is to provide better understanding of Section 201 of the Waxman-Markey Bill.  The paperexamines specific provisions of the bill and investigates ways for the Department of Energy and private code-development organizations to implement Waxman-Markey's policies using the existing tools and methods available to them.

Benchmarking Standards, Model Codes, Codes and Voluntary Guidelines on the HERS Index. A series of slides outlining how current benchmarking standards, model codes, modes and voluntary guidelines fit on the standardized HERS Index.  As on the HERS Index a zero is a zero energy house, a numerically lower rating represents a more energy efficient house.

Evaluating Residential Energy Efficiency Programs with a Universal Matrix.   Using the Residential Energy Services Network’s Home Energy Rater Systems Index (HERS Index) as a metric, this paper calculates the HERS Index numbers of current building programs and demonstrate the benefits of adopting a common system of measurement. 

Product Approval.  This paper explains the processes for manufacturers to demonstrate code compliance of their products, as well as the costs and benefits of each.  By making these distinctions clear, a product's manufacturer will be able to optimize the process of product approval ad significantly reduce the amount of time and money spent.