City of Seattle Energy Performance Disclosure Deadline Approaches

 The City of Seattle’s landmark energy performance disclosure requirement is nearing it first threshold date. All non-residential buildings in the City greater than 50,000 square feet are obligated to have their ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager accounts complete and reported through a unique identifier number in that account by Oct. 3rd. (Non-residential and multi-family buildings greater than 10,000 square feet have similar reporting requirements by April 1, 2012.) New York City recently met its deadline for similar requirements and reports are that they achieved close to a 70% compliance rate. The City of Seattle has been hard at work supporting these benchmarking and reporting requirements with workshops, webinars, and a technical assistance "help desk" (NEEC is providing staff for the help desk with support from the City and the NEEA BetterBricks program). Seattle is one of only 5 cities across the United States with this type of disclosure requirement. The goal of this effort is to help building owners and managers gain a better understanding of the comparative energy use of their building and encourage them to engage in energy management strategies that improve that performance over time. As this program matures to the over 8,000 buildings in the City over 10,000 square feet, it is anticipated that many owners may need the help of service providers. As such, NEEC is assembling a list of its member firms that provide ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmarking services and we will publish that list on our site. Anticipate a call from the NEEC office asking if your firm would like to be listed.