The Role of Building Performance Analytics in Massachusetts’ Climate Policy

Buildings are a part of any policy strategy to protect humans during extreme weather events and curb anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Their cumulative value of $US320 trillion makes them a guarantor of global economic stability worth protecting. Futureproofing the building sector is a complex, multi-player exercise between governments, owners, occupants and utilities who approach the topic with divergent interests, timelines and levels of expertise. To align interests and build trust, these stakeholders need access to the same, up-to date climate-actionable information on their buildings. Climate-actionable information include the ability of a building to protect its occupants’ during heat waves or cold spells, its potential to be upgraded to reduce operations-related carbon emissions and costs and its capacity to contribute to occupants’ long-term livelihood. The Massachusetts Building Inventory (MABI) is a collaborative effort between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and local utilities to model the collective energy use and emissions of all 2.5 million buildings in Massachusetts. Specifically, MABI is a hybrid EnergyPlus/surrogate model that provides over 10,000 possible states for each building. Likelihood functions including resident demographics-based willingness-to-pay analytics project where in building upgrades for heat electrification, envelope improvements and rooftop PV deployment are most likely to happen. The overall impact of these activities on the electric distribution grid and natural gas systems can then be analyzed. MABI also includes a room-level overheating module to evaluate resident safety during heat waves. The panelists will discuss how these data contribute to diverse efforts, including analyzing progress to decarbonizing buildings; evaluating the results of policies and programs; supporting grid planning efforts; informing the state’s 2035 Clean Energy and Climate Plan, a 5-year update to the state's roadmap to Net Zero by 2050; and developing heat resilience strategies that increase access to indoor cooling.