Chicago Updates Its Energy Conservation Code - September 2016

The City Council approved an ordinance on September 14th to modernize the Chicago Energy Conservation Code, which is the portion of the building code that includes energy efficiency requirements for new construction or major renovations in buildings. 

The updates help to clarify all energy code provisions in order to boost energy savings by 15% to 20% above the previous Chicago energy code requirements, which will lead to cost savings of up to $4-4.5 million/year citywide.

Building Energy Benchmarking

In September 2013, Chicago’s City Council adopted a building energy benchmarking ordinance to raise awareness of energy performance through information and transparency, with the goal of unlocking energy and cost savings opportunities for businesses and residents.
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2017  A four star rating system was passed in November, 2017.  Buildings will be required to post their rating so tenants, owners & renters can judge.

Chicago's Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance calls on existing municipal, commercial, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to track whole-building energy use, report to the City annually, and verify data accuracy every three years.  The law covers buildings, which account for ~20% of total energy used by all buildings.   Improving energy efficiency is a key element of Sustainable Chicago’s 2015 action agenda to make Chicago more livable, competitive, and sustainable.

Reports from existing municipal & commercial are due by Aug. 1, 

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How Energy Efficient is your unit or building?

     To give you an incentive to lower your electricity costs, you can sign-up for a monthly energy usage comparison. After setting up an on-line account, click on the 'Energy Tools & Devices' link under the 'Home Savings' column at the bottom of the page [ https://www.comed.com/home-savings/energy-tools-devices/Pages/default.aspx ].  Click on 'Energy Management Tools' and log into your account.  You should see a bar graph of your monthly electricity use for the past year. Click the 'Neighbor Comparison' tab at the top of the graph.  This will show: 1) The average energy use by 100 of comparable neighbors to your unit; 2) the average electricity use of the 20% of your comparable neighbors that are the lowest energy users; and 3) your energy use -- the image on the left below. 

     If you then click on the 'My Usage' tab at the top of the page and then 'View My Usage' you get a graph of your last 12 months electricity usage.  Clicking on the 'Neighbors' tab at the bottom of the graph will bring up a comparison of you and your 100 comparable neighbors – the image on the right below.  If you have made it through this torturous path, you have overcome ComEd's attempt to keep you from becoming more energy efficient.  Congratulations!  Now work on getting the blue line below the green line.