The city of Madison announced plans to develop a new Building Energy Savings program to help commercial building owners identify opportunities to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings, which currently account for one-third of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions. The program will include energy benchmarking and periodic tune-ups for large commercial buildings and other initiatives to support the city’s climate and energy goals — aiming to reach 100% renewable energy and net-zero carbon emissions for city operations by 2030 and community-wide by 2050. Building energy benchmarking is a tool to measure and track annual energy use; it provides information that helps building owners and managers make more informed decisions about building energy use and efficiency actions.
With this new program, Madison will join more than 40 other state and local governments across the country with policies and programs aimed at making their existing building stock more energy efficient and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The city will hold a virtual public information meeting on Wednesday, July 13 at 1:30 p.m., and a series of workshops to gather public input on specific aspects of the program design on July 20, July 27, and August 3 at 1 p.m.
