California Energy Commission Releases Draft Building Energy Performance Strategy Report

As directed by Senate Bill 48, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has released the California Building Energy Performance Strategy Report, which recommends establishing a new statewide building performance standard with the goal of improving the energy performance and energy affordability of existing buildings. Informed by stakeholder engagement, a Technical Advisory Group, and discussions with fellow states and jurisdictions implementing similar policies, the report recommends adopting a building performance standard for commercial and multifamily residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet. It also recommends allowing local jurisdictions to implement their own building performance policies that could target buildings that are not covered by the statewide program, namely those 50,000 square feet or smaller.

Since the passage of Assembly Bill 802 in 2016, buildings larger than 50,000 square feet in California have been required to report their energy data to the CEC. With the proposed statewide building performance standard covering the same footprint of buildings, CEC can use a decade of benchmarking data to inform energy and emissions performance targets for each covered building.

The new report recommends that the California building performance standard:

• Use a trajectory policy structure with both long-term and interim performance requirements
• Use an average of several years of benchmarking data to establish a baseline,
• Use site energy use intensity and site greenhouse gas emissions intensity as performance metrics, and
• Explore demand management and cost-effectiveness performance metrics.

The CEC welcomes written comments through August 21, 2026, and oral comments during a virtual public workshop on July 29, 2026, 10:00 AM Pacific Time (more information here). Interested parties should contact [email protected] for additional information.