Dive Brief:
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The Montgomery County, Maryland, County Council voted to establish regulations for its building energy performance standards on Feb. 25.
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The regulations set energy use intensity performance standards for each building type, define how renewable energy will be incorporated into performance metrics and create the elements required for building performance improvement plans. They apply to most commercial and multifamily buildings that are 25,000 square feet or larger, Councilmember Evan Glass said.
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The county aims to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, and 52% of the county’s carbon emissions emanate from buildings, Glass added.
Dive Insight:
Montgomery County first passed its building energy performance standards into law in 2022; the regulations implement those standards. The standard sets dates based on building size and type for buildings to begin benchmarking energy use for a baseline. The buildings must meet interim performance standards three years after the benchmarking period and final performance standards five years after that. The final standards call for buildings to achieve either a 30% EUI reduction from their baselines or to have an EUI that meets the standard for that building size and type.
Glass, chair of the county’s Transportation and Environment Committee, said that the regulations advanced after the county received $68 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. That money was deposited into the Montgomery County Green Bank, which will assist homeowners associations and property owners to invest in greener infrastructure and become compliant with the standards.
“There are a number of older buildings and communities in Montgomery County, and they had legitimate concerns about how they would pay for the environmental upgrades that would be required,” Glass said.
Making money available from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was established by the Inflation Reduction Act, helped ease some of those concerns, he added.
The new regulations come as the Trump administration has sought to freeze or claw back GGRF funds. Glass said he was closely monitoring the funds from the EPA until they were deposited in the county’s green bank in January, before the inauguration.
“The current administration in Washington has removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord and is moving away from sound environmental policy, which requires states and local governments to step up,” Glass said.
The program provides a credit for on-site renewable energy toward meeting the performance standard, according to a news release from Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich.
“We are striking the right balance — reducing carbon pollution and supporting jobs while giving building owners a clear, flexible and fair path to compliance,” Elrich stated in the news release.
Buildings have 10 years to become compliant, Glass said. He added that about one-third of buildings the regulation covers are already compliant, one-third are close to being compliant, and one-third need “serious investment.”
The county will host a summit April 7 and 8 focused on facilitating collaboration among building owners, property managers, developers and sustainability professionals for meeting the county’s climate goals.
