Making the link: resilience – life safety – energy codes
Looking at the energy performance of building envelopes through a life-safety lens fundamentally changes the conversation about energy cost payback and could drive more stringent fenestration performance requirements. Conversations linking life safety with the stringency of building envelope requirements in energy codes are starting at the governmental level.
A new study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provides a framework for monetizing resilience. It also provides a mechanism for including these resilience benefits and the social cost of carbon as part of a cost-effectiveness framework for code development. This work could be significant for driving state-wide model code adoption.
The National Laboratories completed the DOE’s resilience study and created a methodology to quantify the resilience benefits of building energy efficiency. These benefits include reducing deaths and property damage and providing shelter-in-place during extreme heat and cold weather events. Using this methodology, the study estimates the cost-benefit of adopting higher stringency energy codes in single-family homes (SFH) and multi-family residential buildings (MFRB), incorporating resilience, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency. To read the full blog including details of the study click here.