In September 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced eight states that would participate in a three year Residential Energy Code Field Study. The states include: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas. Through the project, DOE plans to establish a sufficient data set to represent statewide construction trends and detect significant changes in energy use from training, education and outreach activities.

The study comprises three main stages:

1. A baseline study to identify the energy use in typical single-family residential buildings in a given state and opportunities for improving energy efficiency
2. An education, training and outreach phase targeting issues identified through the baseline study
3. A post-study to identify the change in energy use following the education, training and outreach activities.

This project represents an exciting opportunity to not only develop new strategies for education, training and outreach on energy codes, but to also measure what impact those activities have on residential energy use. It is anticipated that some states will have the analysis from their baseline study completed this summer. Stay tuned to the next Decoder for news about the baseline studies.

For more information on the project, please visit DOE’s Residential Energy Code Field Study home page.

For more information on activities within individual states, visit the corresponding website:

• Alabama
• Arkansas and Georgia
• North Carolina
• Pennsylvania
• Maryland