Allocation of Emissions from District Energy Systems with Multiple Outputs—Building Performance Standards
In 2022, Synapse partnered with the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and Integral Group to promulgate best practices and recommendations for developing emission factors for district energy systems that supply multiple outputs simultaneously. These recommendations are included as an appendix to IMT’s Building Performance Standard (BPS) Implementation Guide.
Since 2020, Synapse has been supporting jurisdictions with the development of building performance standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings. This work includes preparing the policy framework, estimating cost impacts, and developing decarbonization pathways for mandatory greenhouse gas emissions targets by building type that decrease over time. An important aspect of this work is providing research, analysis, stakeholder engagement, and rulemaking support to develop emission factors for energy use in buildings.
Many jurisdictions that will implement BPS policies contain district energy systems that provide steam, hot water, chilled water, electricity, or more than one such output to local buildings. Assigning emission factors to district energy systems that supply multiple outputs simultaneously can be challenging for various reasons: the technical complexity of district energy systems, data limitations, and untested regulatory authority, to name a few. To support jurisdictions seeking to adopt BPS rules, Synapse prepared a summary of best practices and recommendations for developing emission factors for such systems.
The full text of the memo, prepared for the Institute for Market Transformation, is available below.