MacDonald-Miller, Bellevue team up to help building owners reach energy efficiency goals
Daily Journal of Commerce feature online by Emma Hinchliffe:
By 2026 Washington State will require owners, property managers and landlords of commercial buildings larger than 50,000 square-feet to hit energy efficiency targets. To help bring buildings and property owners into compliance with the upcoming law, the City of Bellevue launched the Clean Buildings Incentive program. This program will help eligible owners meet the targets and receive substantial incentive payments from Washington’s Early Adoptive Incentive program to do so. The Early Adopter Incentive program offers $75 million in incentives for owners to assess their energy use and create and implement plans for retrofits that will reduce energy consumption and bring them into compliance with state law.
Following a call for RFQ’s, HVAC specialist MacDonald-Miller was chosen as the city’s consultant for the Clean Buildings Incentive program. Those who sign up will have their property benchmarked using the EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager free of charge. MacDonald-Miller will then put together a personalized report detailing the work that needs to be done to get the project in compliance and the energy, and ultimately costs, that will be saved by doing so.
“It’s like doing a physical of the building, we’ll go in and work out where the main offenders are and what work needs to be done,” Perry England, vice president, building performance at MacDonald-Miller, explained.
Once benchmarked it will be up to the owners how they proceed but MacDonald-Miller will be on hand to complete any needed work and retrofits.
“This partnership with the City of Bellevue is a great opportunity to build on what we had already started at MacDonald-Miller,” England continued. “When the new law and guidelines came out the company made a corporate commitment to develop materials and communication so that our customers knew what they needed to do to get their properties in compliance with the law.”
MacDonald-Miller recently finished a retrofit of Evergreen Office Park, at 10940 NE 33rd Place, a project which England shared is likely typical of the kind of buildings that will be affected by the law and the work that will need to be done to get them into compliance. The project also offers an example of what typical energy and cost savings might look like.
Evergreen Office Park consists of two buildings coming in at 103,000 square-feet total. To bring the offices up to code, MacDonald-Miller replaced switchgear and 13 heat pumps, upgraded 62 VAVs, replaced two rooftop units and one cooling tower and pump, upgraded an entire hydronic loop system and upgraded all interior and exterior lights to LED technology.
Upgrades resulted in an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) reduction of 37% for building one and 39% for building two.
“Energy consumption costs were reduced by around a $1 per square-foot,” England said.
The city of Bellevue is the first city in the state to create a program to encourage building owners to start working early to comply with the state’s Commercial Clean Buildings Performance Standards.
“Like many cities in our region, we are working hard to become a stellar environmental steward,” Mayor of Bellevue, Lynne Robinson, said in a press release. “Having an energy efficient building is not only good for the environment, it will also save building owners and managers energy costs.” Of the 400 buildings in Bellevue that will need to comply, total energy savings are anticipated to be nearly $2 million per year.
England and the City of Bellevue stress that owners, property managers and landlords should sign up by March 31st 2022 to ensure that they receive benchmarking in time to make any needed changes. Those who sign up for the program will also receive Puget Sound Energy Incentive Acquisition support.
Multi-family residential buildings are not required to comply with the state law, but are eligible to apply for the Early Adopter Incentives if they meet specified energy efficiency eligibility requirements.
To learn more about the program, visit City of Bellevue Clean Buildings Incentive Program
