In this session, Phil Crone will share the near and mid-term outlooks for the housing market.

In this session, Ryan Meres, RESNET® Program Director will share relevant updates on RESNET®’s cutting edge programs and how they affect the industry. 

In 2022 Congress extended and amended the 45L federal tax credit for energy efficient homes.  The legislation extended the credit for ten years and based a $2,500 credit for complying with the EPA ENERGY STAR for New Homes and $5,000 for being certified by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Net Zero Energy Ready program.  This session will explore the details of how to qualify homes for this important effort to improve the energy performance of new homes. 

This session will cover RESNET®’s recent innovative QA initiatives and how they will improve the efficiency and accuracy of current and past QA procedures.

The 2023 CEE Integrated Home Competition is pleased to present awards to seven innovative connected home devices that exemplify the four tenets of the CEE Integrated Home vision: energy savings, demand flexibility, consumer amenity, and security. The CEE Integrated Home is a connected, fuel neutral, interactive, and efficient home where devices and systems effectively communicate to provide new value to customers, utility systems, and society. The Integrated Home Competition supports this vision through public promotion of commercially available solutions that are simple, reliable, well-designed, and highly functional.

Join David Choo, CalCERTS Director of Compliance, to learn about the changes the California Energy Commission is proposing to the Filed Verification and Diagnostic Testing program. David will discuss the proposed changes and how they could impact California’s HERS® Raters and HERS® Rating Companies that verify compliance of the Building Energy Efficiency Standards for new and existing homes. 

Radiant barriers are increasingly used by homebuilders to help boost their homes’ HERS® Index Scores. The RESNET® 2023 Statistical Abstract, ”Trends in HERS® Rated Homes" reports that in 2022, 32 percent of all HERS® rated homes had a radiant barrier. This is up from 29 percent in 2021.  

 

Just how accurate is HERS® rating software in calculating the performance of radiant barriers? To answer this question the University of Tennessee’s Mechanical Aerospace and Biomedical conducted a detailed analysis.  The analysis included a detailed energy assessment of radiant barrier performance in buildings and sensitivity of thermal emittance on roof and attic. The study resulted in the development of a simplified algorithm for calculating heat flow crossing attic floor. This development could be an important tool for HERS® rating software developers to improve their software analysis.

Home builders across the United States have begun the hard work on gathering, analyzing, and publicly reporting the carbon emissions related to their homes and businesses. This is an amazing first step in the process of achieving net zero construction and a net zero emissions economy. Missing from this equation is a call for subcontractors and trade partners to perform similar carbon accounting. With significantly more subcontractors providing both materials and labor services they are playing a crucial step in calculating the embodied carbon going into a home. As a key trade partner in helping builders achieve net zero construction, HERS® raters have a special opportunity to advise other subcontractors on how to work together to understand their relative impact on the climate and lead the way towards a net zero future.

Attend this session to learn about the key changes included in ENERGY STAR Single-Family New Homes Revision 13 and ENERGY STAR Multifamily New Construction Revision 04, with an anticipated release in late 2023.

Overview of the Phius Certification requirements, QA process and opportunity for Raters to add Phius Certification to their offerings.

There are dozens of different energy codes in the US. Most states and many cities have created their own unique codes. This adds complexity, cost, and inefficiency to code compliance. In this session we will take a zoomed-out look at the situation and the various codes that exist, review how we got here, and discuss some possible improvements that could be made.

This will be an overview of the history of Blower Doors- discussing the origins of development and its connection to supporting the work done by energy raters. This session will then discuss the key issues and opportunities to improve testing, data management & integrity, and maintenance of equipment for Raters and providers.

Energy efficiency program administrators are under increasing pressure to deliver diverse integrated demand side management (IDSM) goals relative to energy savings, carbon reduction, resource flexibility, load forecasting, and customer amenity. Through the promotion of new, innovative, and efficient technologies, voluntary energy programs are well positioned to advance these objectives and steer the transition toward decarbonized “homes of the future.” The Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) membership has worked over many years to define consensus-based efficiency and load flexibility specifications that provide a foundation for program administrators to design new construction offerings that specify product functionalities necessary to support energy management objectives. 

 

For utilities to track progress on decarbonization targets and measure greenhouse gas emissions, they need accounting on a much more granular level than annual consumption, as emission intensity varies by both time of day and season. In addition, on-site fuels have a significant impact on the distribution system and forecasting long term emission levels. The new RESNET® Carbon Rating Index (ANSI/RESNET®/ICC 301 Standard CO2e Rating Index) presents an exciting opportunity for utility incentive and load flexibility programs to measure carbon emissions by addressing when energy is used in the home and how much energy can be reduced. This session will highlight CEE member program administrator activity to design and deploy residential new construction program offerings that incorporate the latest technological advancements and mechanisms for measuring impact. 

Join Jeremiah Ellis and Tamara Dias of CalCERTS as they discuss the 2022 California Energy Code. This session will provide an update to Low-rise Multifamily Projects and an overview for registering LRMF projects. The CalCERTS Team will highlight essential changes and provide energy consultants the support necessary to navigate these new requirements.  The discussions will include relevant energy code updates and the process for registering LMCC projects, uploading field verification pictures and supporting documentation.

Texas HB 3215 that was enacted into law in 2021 amended the state’s energy code to recognize HERS® ratings as a compliance option to the state’ energy code.  The law presented a glide path to Lone Star builders where over time the required HERS® Index Scores grow lower.  This presents dependability for builders who know over time they must improve their homes energy performance.  The law also has a backstop of requiring the 2018 IECC envelope requirements.

 

The new law is having immediate effect. In the first year of being in effect the number of homes HERS® rated in Texas increased by 19%.

 

 This will only grow in 2023 RESNET® partnered with the Texas Association of Builders to undertake education programs in all of the states local builder associations on the HERS® Index and the new code compliance option.

 

This session will explore what effect this new option is having in the nation’s largest new housing market and how the Texas movement is relevant to other states. There will be an interview with the Leading Builders of America where the national implications of the Texas law will be explored. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Agriculture is considering requiring their mortgage programs to comply with the 2021 version of the IECC. This session will provide the reasons for this action, explain the two agencies mortgage programs, and other energy efficiency initiatives.

The HERS® industry is need of an infusion of new and more diverse talent. To meet this need RESNET® has collaborated with Building Talent Foundation to create a platform where new people can learn of the opportunities of the HERS® industry and rating companies can new talent. This session will introduce Building Talent Foundation, its collaboration with RESNET® and how rating companies can take advantage of this opportunity.

Increasingly, home builders are building single family homes aimed at rentals as well as purchase. As mortgage loans become more hard to qualify the more that families are attracted to such a option.

 

Rental home developers are interested to attract financing through ESG. This then is leading to having the homes HERS® rated. What is the role of HERS® ratings and ESG in this movement? 

 

This session will feature HERS® Rating companies who are positioning themselves for this new emerging opportunity and an investor working with a HERS® rating company to launch a net zero energy HERS® rated Build to Rent community. Project details and the roles of HERS® Raters and Green funding will be explored. 

The most energy efficient home is still vulnerable to environmental threats; hazard resilience is key to sustainability. This session will cover advances in hazard resilient construction technology, strategy, and verification options while describing energy efficiency itself as a hazard mitigation tactic. The session will also address how energy efficiency and hazard resilience work together to create long-term housing affordability.