Building Code Council advances updated energy‑code credit tables for public review after hours of debate

The Washington State Building Code Council voted April 24 to advance updated energy‑code proposals into the state’s CR102 rulemaking process, setting up a public comment period on new commercial credit values and residential energy‑rating tables that staff and consultants say are needed to complete the 2024 code cycle.

Council members and outside technical experts spent most of the special meeting examining Pacific Northwest National Laboratory modeling and two competing approaches for how many C406 credits different building types and climate zones should be required to achieve. After protracted deliberation and public testimony from builders, utilities and clean‑energy groups, the Council voted to move the commercially‑focused C406.2 values into CR102 and to advance the C406.1 credit targets represented in David Reddy’s revised “V3” package for public review; that motion passed on a recorded vote, 6–3.

Why it matters: the credit tables spell out how much additional energy efficiency (expressed as credits that map to percent energy‑use reductions) buildings must achieve beyond the prescriptive minimums in the 2024 code. Both the modeling input (PNNL)…