Through the rest of 2024, Denver is committed to working with the community to improve and strengthen the Energize Denver Building Performance Policy. The city is proposing several significant updates to the policy to help building owners and ensure Denver reaches its climate goals, including:
- HVAC: Additional flexibility for owners to choose HVAC replacement timing (end of service life) if that is part of their compliance strategy.
- Target Cap: A cap for the maximum required reduction means no building has to save more than 42%. With this change, one-third of the buildings would benefit and Denver would still meet its goals.
- Vacancy: An alternate compliance option just for buildings facing vacancy or financial distress.
- Lease Changes: An alternate compliance option for timeline adjustments related to lease termination.
- Adaptive Reuse: A 2030 target adjustment for adaptive reuse projects for saving the building.
- Penalties: Adjusting the penalty rate schedules for timeline adjustments so buildings have more time to turn in applications at the lower penalty rate.
- Rebates: Developing rebates for energy audits and for early compliance energy efficiency measures.
- Other: Additions and guiding information for the Technical Guidance Manual
The city is committed to Energize Denver as a key piece of its work to make Denver more vibrant. It looks forward to improving how to support building owners with compliance so all can join the 25% of Denver buildings that have already met their Energize Denver targets.
Changes to the Energize Denver Building Performance Policy will be adopted in January. Officials started their engagement process on the proposed changes in October and will continue to take feedback until Dec. 16.
The current rules and regulations for the Benchmarking and Performance Policy are available here.
