Outline of Orlando’s BEWES Policy
Orlando, Florida’s city council launched its Building Energy and Water Efficiency Strategy (BEWES) in 2016 following a unanimous vote supporting the new policy, which now tracks the energy and water output of the city’s largest buildings.
The motivation behind the move was to assist local commercial owners of property, specifically to:
- Increase the efficiency of their building operations
- Save businesses and residents money
- Encourage actions that will lead to a healthier, cleaner environment
A primary concern is the financial waste caused by porous window seals, poor insulation, and poor heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, all of which contribute substantially to the City’s air pollution problems.
The policy kicked in on August 1, 2018, from which date all city-owned buildings with a floor area of more than 10,000 gross square feet and all commercial and multifamily buildings above 50,000 gross square feet are required to use the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool to calculate the building’s energy benchmarking score.
To achieve this score, building owners, or designated benchmarking leaders who might be property managers or third-party energy consultants, must track “whole-building energy use” using the Portfolio Manager tool. This relates to electricity use, as well as the use of natural gas and other fuels used in common spaces as well as spaces occupied by the owner or tenants.
Water is not required for the BEWES policy, but water benchmarking is highly recommended and encouraged, with the exception of water used for fire pipes and emergencies.
The BEWES ordinance has three important parts:
- Benchmark energy use, discussed above, which is annual, and which was first implemented in May 2018.
- Information transparency, which is also annual, and which involves all collected data being included in an annual City of Orlando report and online mapping tool that analyzes energy, gas, and water use within the City from September 2019.
- Energy audits or retro-commissioning which are required once every five years, beginning in May 2020. Any buildings that score less than 50 out of 100, which is the national average, must either perform an energy audit or undertake retro-commissioning of their base building systems to make them more energy-efficient.