Phius Senior Policy Analyst Isaac Elnecave discusses a recent policy advancement in Illinois.
In a long-awaited development, the Illinois Capital Development Board recently adopted the first-ever Illinois stretch code. Stretch codes are more stringent building codes that go beyond the base energy code in a particular jurisdiction to promote more efficient, lower emissions buildings.
Set to go into effect on January 1, 2025, the stretch code was authorized legislatively in the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). Within the legislation, targets were set for the stretch code, such that each iteration would be more energy efficient than the state base code and achieve a specific percentage reduction of site energy use compared to the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).
For the first version, the site energy of a residential dwelling meeting the stretch code will be no more than 50% of the energy that a building meeting the 2006 IECC would use. For commercial buildings, the site energy can be no more than 60% of the energy use of a commercial building meeting the 2006 IECC. This is equivalent to an energy savings of 22.7% compared to the 2021 IECC Residential Code and a 4.4% improvement over the 2021 IECC Commercial Energy Code.
The commercial stretch code is less aggressive because the commercial energy code has been more successful in reducing energy use since 2006 than the residential energy code. Future iterations of the stretch code (it will be updated every 3 years) will be legislatively mandated to reduce energy use by an even greater amount. See Section 55 of the Energy Efficient Building Act for more information.
Within the context of the stretch code, CEJA also explicitly allows the inclusion of alternative compliance paths for Phius. In Illinois, an alternative compliance path for Phius exists in the state base code, the stretch code and in the City of Chicago code. This means the alternative compliance path will be included in all municipalities regardless of whether they are enforcing the base or stretch code (Chicago adopts its own code, so it is helpful that they included Phius as an alternative compliance path in the Chicago Transformation Energy Code).
The approval of the stretch code dovetails with additional Phius related policy work in Illinois. Besides its inclusion as an alternative compliance path, Phius is included in: the State Qualified Allocation Plan related to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit as well as analogous policy in Chicago (the Chicago Sustainable Development Policy) and incentive programs being run by ComED.
The stretch code will need to be affirmatively adopted by a municipality before it can be enforced. A number of advocacy organizations across the state have begun discussions with municipalities to encourage cities to do so. For now, a key breakthrough has been made in the effort to increase the number of Phius projects in Illinois.
