This subcommittee is forming and currently recruiting new members. For more information, please email info@performancealliance.org.

The Milestones and Key Actions in the table below will help illuminate and guide the work of the committee. They are documented in the Whole-Building Design section of the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Action Plan. The Action Plan was developed with input from the Investor-Owned Utilities, the Western HVAC Performance Alliance, and other stakeholders to help California’s HVAC sector achieve the goals described in the California Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan published by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Strategy 3.2: Accelerate activities related to HVAC aspects of whole building industry design standards.

Many milestones in the Strategic Plan focus on changes to Title 24 (T24) and Title 20 (T20)—California’s building codes and appliance standards. However, the specific HVAC aspects of a systems approach— including system concept, load calculations, system location, air distribution, equipment selection and duct size calculations—are only possible if HVAC is appropriately integrated during the design phase. This strategy can more quickly highlight HVAC’s role in the design phase by leveraging industry leadership organizations and working to publicize high-profile results. These efforts will ramp up by 2012, to leverage results of pilot efforts with IOU programs to aggressively promote whole building design.

Strategy 3.4: Accelerate code-based solutions to improving the thermal structural integrity and incorporating alternative cooling methods into building designs.

The whole building approach stressed in the Strategic Plan improves the thermal integrity of structures (e.g., building envelope), addresses lighting and appliance loads, moves ducts and equipment off the roof and out of hot attics (or eliminates the need for ducts with radiant heating or cooling).  In market diffusion theory, code-based solutions—such as a requirement to incorporate radiant heating and cooling and ground source heat-pumps in all new construction—are designed to address both the late majority and laggards in the building industry, left unmotivated by the first-mover incentives (both financial and otherwise) that inspire innovators and early adopters. However, California’s building energy codes (T24) are updated approximately every three years—which leaves reach codes as the main path to accelerate code-based solutions related to whole building design. The WHPA, through its committees, is involved in current efforts to update the new T24 base code that will go into effect in January 2014.