California Extends Benchmarking Law to Apply to Multifamily Buildings

The Golden State has had a benchmarking law on the books for commercial buildings for over five years, but now new legislation will make it easier for California FMs to assess whole building energy consumption information, as well as extending the program to multifamily residential buildings.

By providing FMs with whole building energy usage data, AB 802 also allows owners and managers to assess the viability of renewable installations, track and verify energy savings, and promote behavior change.

The law will require California utilities to provide one year’s worth of monthly energy consumption for a building to its owner by Jan. 1, 2017 for properties that have three or more commercial utility accounts. It also requires owners to  publicly share building energy benchmarking ratings annually.