Retrofitting buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The Deep Energy Retrofit Program will modernize affordable multifamily buildings in the District
to make them more efficient as well as help fight climate change.

 

Overview
As part of the District’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help fight climate change, the DCPSC has advanced a “Whole Building Deep Energy Retrofit Program” (Formal Case 1148) which is an energy efficiency and energy conservation (EEEC) program that assists affordable multifamily building owners with energy efficiency retrofit financing and helps them identify other energy programs that could minimize their buildings’ energy usage. 
 
The Clean Energy Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018 (Clean Energy Act) established new minimum Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) for owners of private buildings in the District. By ensuring that affordable multifamily building owners have access to resources to comply with the BEPS, the Deep Energy Retrofit Program will help achieve the District’s climate policy commitments. The program also supports the goal of the Clean Energy DC Plan to make equity and affordability central considerations when implementing climate policies.
 
Current status
The EEEC Task Force recommended that the DCPSC select the International Center for Appropriate & Sustainable Technology (ICAST) as the Deep Energy Retrofit Program implementer. The Commission accepted and approved this recommendation on November 20, 2020. The EEEC Task Force filed the final program design on March 18, 2021, but, after subsequent EEEC Task Force discussions, a revised program design was filed on June 3, 2021. The EEEC Task Force also filed its first annual report for the program on February 25, 2022.

Background
Recognizing that affordable housing developers often face limited access to financial resources to undertake building upgrades, work to create an EEEC program in the District began in October 2017 when the DCPSC set aside $11.25 million to fund such programs as part of
Formal Case 1119, the Exelon-Pepco Holdings merger case.
 
Following the passage of the Clean Energy Act, the DCPSC held a technical conference in March 2018 to consider an EEEC deep retrofit program to provide whole-building energy savings to significantly reduce energy consumption in affordable multifamily buildings. An EEEC Working Group discussed how this program should be developed, taking into consideration related consumer education and outreach activities.
 
The EEEC Working Group recommended in June 2019 that the DCPSC hire a program implementer to finalize the Deep Energy Retrofit Program and serve as a single point of contact for all energy efficiency grant applicants. The DCPSC also created an EEEC Task Force in October 2019 to issue an RFP, review responses, recommend an implementer for the Deep Energy Retrofit Program and facilitate stakeholder involvement in the Deep Energy Retrofit Program.

EEEC Task Force

 
Members
Pepco
Dennis P. Jamouneau, Assistant General Counsel at PHI
 
DCPSC
Ina Avalon, Attorney Advisor
 
Apartment and Office Building Association
Excetral K. Caldwell, Senior Regulatory Counsel
 
District Department of Energy & Environment

Aykut Yilmaz, Program Analyst
 
Office of the People’s Counsel for the District of Columbia

Sarah Kogel-Smucker, Environmental and Climate Attorney
 
National Consumer Law Center

Andrew Pizor, Staff Attorney
 
National Housing Trust
Todd Nedwick, Housing, and Energy Efficiency Policy Director

 
Meetings
March 16, 2022 February 16, 2022 December 9, 2021 October 27, 2021 September 30, 2021 August 25, 2021 July 29, 2021 June 30, 2021 May 27, 2021 April 23, 2021 February 1st and 23rd, 2021 Janauary 19, 2021 December 17, 2020 November 4, 2020