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The New Colorado Model Low Energy and Carbon Code
At the AIA Colorado Practice + Design Conference, Elizabeth Gillmor and Adam Berry led the session “The New Colorado Model Low Energy and Carbon Code,” offering an in-depth exploration of Colorado’s progressive energy code landscape. Representing the Colorado Energy Office and the Colorado Energy Code Development Board, the speakers detailed the evolution of energy codes, including the 2019 House Bill 12-1260, which established a statewide minimum energy code, and the subsequent adoption of the 2021 IECC with Electric Ready, Solar Ready provisions. They introduced the Low Energy and Carbon Code, set to become mandatory for jurisdictions adopting new building codes after July 1, 2026, emphasizing its role in advancing electrification, renewable energy integration, and EV readiness.
Colorado’s home rule status allows local governments to tailor code adoption, creating a diverse implementation landscape. Gillmor and Berry highlighted the Low Energy and Carbon Code’s advantages, such as simplified compliance pathways, fuel debiasing to support electrification, and tailored requirements for large homes exceeding 7,500 square feet, which must achieve net zero energy status. They presented case studies, including an affordable housing project in Adams County that avoided costly mandatory solar requirements under the 2024 IECC by adopting the model code, and a grocery store chain that found electrification more cost-effective under the Low Energy and Carbon Code, prompting a shift in their Colorado design standards.
The session also addressed challenges like accessibility requirements for EV infrastructure, demand response capable equipment to manage peak grid loads, and the complexities of transitioning to the 2024 IECC. The speakers emphasized the importance of influencing local jurisdictions during this transitional period to adopt the Low Energy and Carbon Code early, ensuring consistency and alignment with Colorado’s ambitious decarbonization goals.
Attendees were encouraged to leverage resources from the Colorado Energy Office, including bi-weekly webinars, the Colorado Code helpline, and the Energy Code Adoption Toolkit, which offer guidance on compliance, training, and planning. These tools, along with innovative energy modeling pathways and credit structures like C406 and R408, empower professionals to advocate for the adoption of the Low Energy and Carbon Code and contribute to a sustainable built environment in Colorado. By embracing this code, jurisdictions and practitioners can simplify enforcement, reduce costs, and align with the state’s net zero emissions goals, fostering a resilient and energy-efficient future.
Takeaways
When looking at the consideration of do we want to require every commercial building above 5,000 square feet to have a solar array when we are considering that the grid is already moving towards a largely renewable status anyway? And the answer was no, we don’t want to require that.
Never, never, never say, I want to use this code because it’s cheaper. Even if it is, don’t ever say that… It’s better for Colorado because it is. It’s better for your building because it is… It’s going to make the jurisdiction’s life easier if they don’t have to learn both the 2024 IECC and the model code.
You as consultants have a weird amount of power right now. And I really want to encourage you to exercise it to advocate for your practice, your clients, your community… we are here in this funny time. I just want to encourage everyone to use the resources, make sure knowledge is power, make sure you understand how this will impact you and utilize it to your advantage.
How many of you work in only one jurisdiction? Yeah. Okay. We got one hand out of the whole room. So the other thing that this does is that your neighbors, your neighboring jurisdictions are going to be adopting this code because they’re going to have to soon. And it’s easier for us as practitioners to work with the same code.
2024 IECC… you may have noticed there are now two tables and you would have to choose credits from your standard C406 table and the renewable energy and load management credit table, which is a beast. The model code gets rid of that… everybody hates them and nobody uses them. Like what a waste of money, right? Let’s just not make people waste money and let’s spend it on something else.
This code requires demand response capable equipment. And I think it’s really important to clarify that this only requires the equipment itself to be capable of participating in a demand response program. The choice of whether or not to participate in a demand response program will still live with the customer as it always has.
We panicked because of that mandatory solar requirement that would have killed this project. There was no money for mandatory solar… it was going to be a $250,000 solar array. Killed the project… So we approached Adams county and we said, hey, do you think we could utilize this model low energy carbon code? Because I think it would be a really good fit for this project.
We have to recognize in a state like Colorado, we have a lot of communities that see homes much, much, much, much larger than that… 30, 40, 50,000 square feet. We’re not really talking about a residential building anymore at that point. We’re really talking about a commercial building in reality.
Now all buildings are considered equal. All buildings have the same baseline and you are complying via a site energy metric… if you use a heat pump that has, say a 3.0 cop that is three times more efficient than gas. So by comparing to a gas baseline, you are rewarded for that energy improvement without having to worry about energy costs.
We provide all kinds of different on demand training… All you have to do is ask. We will build a training, we will provide the training and we can record it for you for later viewing if you want. All at no cost to you. So all of this is free CEUs.