Effective: August 16, 2016
Latest Legislation: Senate Bill 310 - 131st General Assembly
(A) As used in this section:
(1) "Construct" includes reconstruct, improve, renovate, enlarge, or otherwise alter.
(2) "Energy consumption analysis" means the evaluation of all energy consuming systems, components, and equipment by demand and type of energy, including the internal energy load imposed on a facility by its occupants and the external energy load imposed by climatic conditions.
(3) "Facility" means a building or other structure, or part of a building or other structure, that includes provision for a heating, refrigeration, ventilation, cooling, lighting, hot water, or other major energy consuming system, component, or equipment.
(4) "Life-cycle cost analysis" means a general approach to economic evaluation that takes into account all dollar costs related to owning, operating, maintaining, and ultimately disposing of a project over the appropriate study period.
(5) "Political subdivision" means a county, township, municipal corporation, board of education of any school district, or any other body corporate and politic that is responsible for government activities in a geographic area smaller than that of the state.
(6) "State funded" means funded in whole or in part through appropriation by the general assembly or through the use of any guarantee provided by this state.
(7) "State institution of higher education" has the same meaning as in section 3345.011 of the Revised Code.
(8) "Cogeneration" means the simultaneous production of thermal energy and electricity for use primarily within a building or complex of buildings.
(B) The Ohio facilities construction commission shall develop energy efficiency and conservation programs for new construction design and review and for existing building audit and retrofit.
The commission may accept and administer grants from public and private sources for carrying out any of its duties under this section.
(C) No state agency, department, division, bureau, office, unit, board, commission, authority, quasi-governmental entity, or institution shall construct or cause to be constructed, within the limits prescribed in this section, a state-funded facility without a proper life-cycle cost analysis as computed or prepared by a qualified architect or engineer in accordance with the rules required by division (D) of this section.
Construction shall proceed only upon the disclosure to the commission, for the facility chosen, of the life-cycle costs as determined in this section and the capitalization of the initial construction costs of the building. The results of life-cycle cost analysis shall be a primary consideration in the selection of a building design. That analysis shall be required only for construction of buildings with an area of twenty thousand square feet or greater, except the commission may waive this requirement or may require an analysis for buildings with an area of less than twenty thousand square feet. For projects with an estimated construction cost exceeding fifty million dollars, the analysis shall include a review of cogeneration as an energy source.
Nothing in this section shall deprive or limit any state agency that has review authority over design or construction plans from requiring a life-cycle cost analysis or energy consumption analysis.
(D) For the purposes of assisting the commission in its responsibility for state-funded facilities pursuant to section 123.21 of the Revised Code and of cost-effectively reducing the energy consumption of those and any other state-funded facilities, thereby promoting fiscal, economic, and environmental benefits to this state, the commission shall promulgate rules specifying cost-effective, energy efficiency and conservation standards that may govern the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of all state-funded facilities, except facilities of state institutions of higher education or facilities operated by a political subdivision. The development services agency shall cooperate in providing information and technical expertise to the commission to ensure promulgation of rules of maximum effectiveness. The standards prescribed by rules promulgated under this division may draw from or incorporate, by reference or otherwise and in whole or in part, standards already developed or implemented by any competent, public or private standards organization or program. The rules also may include any of the following:
(1) Specifications for a life-cycle cost analysis that shall determine, for the economic life of such state-funded facility, the reasonably expected costs of facility ownership, operation, and maintenance including labor and materials. Life-cycle cost may be expressed as an annual cost for each year of the facility's use.
A life-cycle cost analysis additionally may include an energy consumption analysis that conforms to division (D)(2) of this section.
(2) Specifications for an energy consumption analysis of the facility's heating, refrigeration, ventilation, cooling, lighting, hot water, and other major energy consuming systems, components, and equipment.
A life-cycle cost analysis and energy consumption analysis shall be based on the best currently available methods of analysis, such as those of the national institute of standards and technology, the United States department of energy or other federal agencies, professional societies, and directions developed by the department.
(3) Specifications for energy performance indices, to be used to audit and evaluate competing design proposals submitted to the state.
(4) A process by which a manager of a specified state-funded facility, except a facility of a state institution of higher education or a facility operated by a political subdivision, may receive a waiver of compliance with any provision of the rules required by divisions (D)(1) to (3) of this section.
(E) Each state agency, department, division, bureau, office, unit, board, commission, authority, quasi-governmental entity, institution, and state institution of higher education shall comply with any applicable provision of this section or of a rule promulgated pursuant to division (D) of this section.