Newly Released ASHRAE 90.1-2022 Includes Expanded Scope For Building Sites

ASHRAE has released its latest version of its benchmark energy efficiency standard, ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2022 – Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings. The latest version includes an expanded scope for building sites and major additions appearing for the first time in a minimum-efficiency U.S. model energy standard or code.

Major additions to Standard 90.1-2022 include:

• A minimum prescriptive requirement for onsite renewable energy. This change is representative of a more widely adopted shift to renewable energy.
• An optional Mechanical System Performance Path allowing HVAC system efficiency tradeoffs based on the new total system performance ratio metric.
• New requirements to address the impacts of thermal bridging.

Additional highlights include:

• New energy credit requirements for a customized approach to improving energy efficiency.
• New informative guidance for using carbon emissions, site energy or source energy as alternative performance metrics to the current energy cost metric.
• Significant efficiency increases in IEER for commercial rooftops and a new SEER2/HSPF2 metric for <65K sized air-cooled heat pumps.

Efficiency increases in IEER for commercial rooftop units provide substantial cost-effective energy savings, and as a side benefit encourages variable speed operation, which helps improve dehumidification performance in humid climates. With these updates, industries and ASHRAE 90.1 have worked together to continue to improve the efficiency of the HVAC equipment and processes used in buildings.

For more details, visit ashrae.org.