The Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN) has released a report of the work completed by their Permit Resource Opportunity Program, or PROP. The report contains an analysis full of best practices, challenges, and opportunities for improvement in compliance enforcement with California energy code.

As shared on BayREN’s website, the PROP report “represents the collaborative efforts of the nine San Francisco Bay Area Counties and 15 Bay Area building departments to learn about energy code enforcement barriers and challenges, identify successful enforcement strategies, and gather data about the impact of discrepancies on building performance.”

“BayREN’s Codes & Standards Permit Resource Opportunity Program (PROP) sent building code experts to Bay Area building departments to study energy code compliance and enforcement practices and to identify successful enforcement strategies. Those best practices are collected in the report.”

Why are best practices on compliance and enforcement of California’s building energy code (currently the 2013 Building Energy Efficiency Standards, or BEES) so significant? The report provides a great summary of the energy efficiency opportunities presented by compliance, shared in part below.