STANDARDS: 2024 saw some of the largest federal standards updates in the history of the program. Between 2021 and the end of 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) updated more than 30 federal standards; U.S. DOE reviewed another nine and deemed them not ready for updates. Standards updates typically take more than two years from start to finish, so NEEA’s codes and standards team and our partners around the country have been very busy for the past several years. Federal standards are required to be technologically feasible and cost-effective, and the process is open to debate and feedback from all market actors. U.S. DOE estimates the updates from the past three years will reduce annual energy expenses for business and consumers by $2 billion. Through a detailed analysis, the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP) estimates that significant savings remain for future standards including more than $10 billion in annual energy savings for business and consumers. This highlights the tremendous innovation of manufacturers and technological advancements that continue to offer energy efficiency opportunities for decades to come.
CODES: Not to be outshined by federal standards, codes also had a busy and productive year including updates to codes in all four Northwest states and the national International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) model code. Like standards, code updates require a couple of years of public comment and analysis, and codes have historically delivered energy efficiency savings each time they’ve been updated. Once the current codes were completed, the states began the next round of code development. NEEA staff and our partners almost immediately resumed developing code proposals and serving on technical advisory committees to update the codes.
Q4 2024 Code Highlights:
• NEEA staff were selected for 2027 IECC Commercial Consensus committee.
• The Washington State Energy Code–Commercial code change proposal period opened, with a deadline of January 14, 2025.
• Oregon finalized adoption of the 2025 Oregon Energy Efficiency Specialty Code (OEESC), effective January 1, 2025, with a six-month phase-in period and mandatory effective date of July 1, 2025.
This newsletter provides details of all NEEA’s codes, standards and new construction activities organized by state. Beyond the code and standards development efforts, NEEA provides trainings, educational materials, tools to aid in compliance, help desks to address market questions, and state level collaboratives that organize to address opportunities and gaps in their states.
