Basalt talks need for more net-zero uniformity across Roaring Fork, Eagle River valleys
Group hopes to thwart emissions with regional energy building code by 2030
Habitat for Humanity/Courtesy photo
Basalt Town Council on Tuesday discussed the need for a more uniform net-zero energy building code across the Roaring Fork and Eagle River valleys, with the hopes of achieving net-zero construction by 2030.
The council unanimously adopted a resolution to bring the Regional Road Map for a New Net Zero on as a new tool for the town of Basalt.
Since Basalt began tracking its greenhouse gas emissions in 2014, buildings have remained the largest contributor to greenhouse emissions.
In 2022, Basalt adopted its own net-zero road map with the help of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), which was also involved in the creation of the regional net-zero road map.
“The regional net-zero road map is not intended to replace Basalt’s own road map, but acts as a complement to and provides additional tools to move toward the goal of net-zero development and considers this on a regional level,” said Basalt Senior Planner Sara Nadolny.
The town of Basalt has already committed to reducing Eagle County greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and 80% by 2050, as well as implementing net-zero or all-electric construction requirements by 2030 in its climate action plan.
The project presented to Basalt Town Council is in pursuit of achieving a priority action for the building sector within the climate action plan.
The approach will include:
- Involving sustainability and building department teams.
- Educating on how “net-zero” code elements are showing up in building codes.
- Defining as a region what attributes a “net-zero building” has.
- And collaboratively develop a “stepped” approach to achieve buildings with “net-zero” attributes through code adoption cycles 2024-2030.
In 2022, Climate Action Collaborative and Lotus Engineering and Sustainability received funding from the Colorado Energy Office to create a code cohort with Eagle County and to come to a consensus on a sustainable building code.
When that project wrapped up, Climate Action Collaborative and Lotus Engineering and Sustainability wanted to continue to build on the momentum that had begun with the code cohort to roadmap the code process to net-zero construction by 2030.
“We developed a project proposal that the Colorado Energy Office ended up funding to do this work, but when we handed it off to the energy office to review, they asked to bring in more communities,” said Gina McCrackin, who manages the climate action collaborative for Eagle County communities at Walking Mountains Science Center.
McCrackin, who also collaborates with communities to implement climate action plans locally, worked with her team to bring in more communities to participate in the project. This includes Avon, Basalt, Eagle, Gypsum, Minturn, Red Cliff, Vail, Aspen, Snowmass Village, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, and Pitkin and Eagle counties.
These communities came to consensus on how to achieve new net-zero construction energy codes by 2030. This work was informed by building officials across the region, as well as sustainability staff to make sure there was local and town level participation.
“The regional vision, not only is this work important for code alignment of our regional building officials and making their lives easier, but it’s also really important for our workforce,” McCrackin said. “And that was something that the Colorado Energy Office really drove home, and as a part of this work just beyond working at the local government level, we wanted to turn to the workforce and ask them questions.”
Five listen-and-learn sessions with over 100 participants were hosted with companies throughout the Roaring Fork and Eagle River valleys, including with architects, engineers, and mechanics.
One of the key themes was that the local workforce does not want to be burdened with selling the benefits of electrification and energy efficient equipment. Representatives from the local workforce also said that the government should be setting that code, and if it is set, they will build to it.
“That was something that we heard was local government really needs to be taking the lead on this so that way we can support and help meet that code,” McCrackin said.
McCrackin said they also heard that regionally aligned codes are important to make sure the workforce is not needing to work with different codes in different communities one day and the next day working on a different code in a different community.
They also learned that there is demand for equipment like heat pumps and electrification. Meanwhile, housing and wages continue to be an issue with the local skilled workforce in terms of recruitment and retention.
These community participants and workforce representatives created a final net-zero building definition:
- “Powered by electricity
- Uses renewable energy from the grid and/or onsite generation
- Has the ability to store energy and/or shift energy use to reduce peak demand on the electric grid
- Achieves energy performance above the base of the International Energy Conservation Code
- Is designed to minimize embodied carbon
- And is EV-ready.”
For electric utility commitments and requirements, both Glenwood Springs and Aspen Electric have 100% renewable energy already, Holy Cross Energy is committed to 100% renewable energy by 2030, and Xcel Energy is required by state law to have 80% renewable energy by 2030.
Xcel Energy funded a study where they looked at non-compliance of the building code across different building types. They learned that up to $2,300 per building per year is lost by the building owner or the homeowner due to noncompliance with that code.
“As we continue to advance codes, specifically the energy code, the intention is to increase efficiency, which results in decreased utility costs for the folks inhabiting those spaces,” McCrackin said. “So when we see non-compliance with the building code that translates to increased costs for the folks inhabiting those spaces.”
“While this project may be wrapping up in Q1 of next year,” she added, “We have some awesome community coordinating entities that will continue to work with local governments to ensure that we advance this work.”
Regan Mertz can be reached at 970-429-9153 or rmertz@aspentimes.com.
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