Virginia State Snapshot

VIRGINIA CURRENT CODE

Residential: 2006 IECC (Mandatory) Commercial: 2006 IECC (Mandatory) DEMOGRAPHICS Population: 7,769,089 Total Housing Units: 3,006,877 ENERGY CONSUMPTION Residential Sector: 591.2 Trillion BTU Commercial Sector: 574.2 Trillion BTU 53% of Virginia’s electricity and 33% of natural gas supply is consumed to heat residential homes.

Virginia will receive $70 Million from the federal government if the state adopts the latest energy codes:  IECC 2009 (International Energy Conservation Code)  ASHRAE 90.1 2007 (American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) Accumulated residential sector savings, 2009 to 2030, would be:  16.8 trillion Btu of energy  1,170 thousand metric tons of CO2 (Equivalent to the annual emissions of 214,286 passenger vehicles)  $162 million  $162 million could pay more than the full undergraduate tuition for current students at private universities in Virginia FINANCING OPPORTUNITIES: In February 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated $3.1 billion for U.S. Department of Energy’s State Energy Program (SEP) to assist states with building energy efficiency efforts. As one of the requirements to receive SEP grants, state governors must certify to DOE that their state will implement energy codes of equal or greater stringency than the latest national model codes (currently IECC 2009 and Standard 90.1-2007). Thus, it is in the state’s best economic interests to adopt these standards statewide and begin enjoying the benefits of an efficient building sector. CODE ADOPTION AND CHANGE PROCESS:

Residential use of electricity costs 7.71 cents/kWh and $14.75/thousand cubic ft of natural gas.

Regulatory Process: The Virginia Board of Housing and Community Development has authority to adopt changes to the Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC), and the adoption process for modifications may take up to 12 months. All meetings of the board and its three committees are open to the public, and there is a public comment session at the beginning of each business meeting to 62.7% of natural gas is con- allow the public to address the board on any issue. The board generally meets sumed by residential homes. monthly but there are some months that the board does not meet. Meeting dates and times are posted to the Department of Housing and Community DevelopCODE CHANGE CYCLE ment website and the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall website. Three-year review cycle concurrent with the publicaFor more information please consult the Building Codes Assistance Project (www.bcap-energy.org) or Nick Zigelbaum ([email protected]) tions of new editions of model codes.

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