Evaluating building decarbonization potential in U.S. cities under emissions based building performance standards and load flexibility requirements

In an effort to decarbonize the built environment, municipalities across the United States are joining the National Building Performance Standard Coalition. The National Building Performance Standard Coalition is an effort by the United States federal government to encourage cities to design and implement effective and equitable building performance standards. A building performance standard is an energy policy that requires buildings to meet energy use or greenhouse gas emissions targets in effort to reduce the carbon intensity of buildings. In this paper, we examine the impact of implementing various building performance standards for commercial buildings in 15 cities and one county in the United States from 2024 to 2050. We first estimate the emission reductions associated from a null case (no building performance standard). Next, we implement two building performance standards: (1) an annual greenhouse gas emissions target and (2) a peak grid load flexibility requirement. Lastly, we combine the two to assess the potential impact of an integrated energy and demand building performance standard. We find that individually a load flexibility building performance standard does not contribute to significant emissions reductions but when paired with a greenhouse gas building performance standard it leads to a combined 89% reduction (a cumulative savings of 189 MMtCO2e) across commercial buildings in the 15 cities and one county analyzed. This potential reduction represents a massive decarbonization scenario that far exceeds a 2050 80% decarbonization target and points to feasible policy pathways for meeting climate and sustainability goals.