Atlanta, Georgia: ASHRAE has informed that several proposed changes to the ASHRAE Standard 214P, ‘Standard for Determining and Expressing Building Energy Performance in a Rating Program’, are open for public comment until September 19, 2016.

The standard, the announcement said, will provide a standardised approach for determining and expressing building energy performance in a rating programme, in addition to standardising the content of a label associated with the energy component of a rating programme and establishing the minimum requirements for rating programme documentation. The proposed standard, it added, is meeting a need for uniformity in the building energy labelling and disclosure process.

According to Wayne Stoppelmoor, Chair of the Standard 214P committee, there are many entities in the marketplace that rate buildings utilising a number of different building rating systems, yielding varying results.

The standard, the announcement said, underwent a public advisory review in August, resulting in 40 comments.

The Society said that changes made as a result of that public review include revision of the title, purpose and scope, to better reflect the actual content of the standard, and to state that the standard is to be used with one or more energy performance metrics. It also mentioned that the change inserted a section that restricts the standard to only apply to the energy component of a rating programme.

ASHRAE has revealed the other major changes to the proposed standard, which include:

• Revision to allow the rating programme to define its methodology sampling rate
• Addition of two means for an assessor to demonstrate competence
• Addition of a Code of Conduct section

ASHRAE has informed that comments can be posted at www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.