Md. Code Regs. 26.28.02.04

Current through Register Vol. 51, No. 26, December 27, 2024

Section 26.28.02.04 - Reporting Requirements of Electric and Gas Companies and District Energy Providers

A. Electric and Gas Companies.

(1) Electric and gas companies delivering energy to a covered building shall maintain whole-building energy consumption data for all buildings, for at least the most recent 5 years in an electronic format capable of being uploaded to the benchmarking tool.

(2) On and after January 1, 2025, upon the request and authorization of a building owner an electric or gas company shall provide the building owner with at least the most recent 12 consecutive months of whole building energy consumption data by fuel type for the specified building for all the fuel types provided by the company.

(a) The electric or gas company shall provide data to the requestor as follows:

(i) Data shall include whole building energy consumption, aggregating all utility meters that measure energy consumption at the building;

(ii) Data shall be provided to the requestor within 90 days of receiving a data request in 2025;

(iii) Data shall be provided to the requestor within 30 days of receiving a data request in 2026 or later; and

(iv) Whole building energy consumption data shall be provided to the requestor in monthly intervals.

(b) An electric or gas company may be exempt from §A(2)(a) of this regulation in accordance with §A(7) of this regulation.

(3) Investor-owned electric and gas companies serving 40,000 or more customers shall use the benchmarking tool's web services API to deliver data to requesters on an ongoing basis.

(4) Investor-owned electric and gas companies serving fewer than 40,000 customers, municipal electric and gas companies, or cooperatively owned electric and gas companies shall provide data in the spreadsheet template specified by the benchmarking tool, or through the benchmarking tool's web services API to requesters on an ongoing basis.

(5) Electric and gas companies shall develop and maintain a process to identify and confirm with the building owner the list of meters that will be used to calculate the aggregated total as follows:

(a) Electric and gas companies shall provide to the building owner a listing of all meters included in the whole building energy consumption data for verification purposes; and

(b) If any correction or update takes place at a meter that is included in the whole building energy consumption data, then the affected value or values shall be proactively updated by the electric or gas company through the benchmarking tool's web services API or through an updated spreadsheet template with a notification provided to the building owner/data requestor.

(6) For covered buildings with five or more tenants, electric and gas companies shall deliver to requestors the monthly whole building energy consumption data capturing total consumption by fuel type of all relevant fuel or fuels across all meters at the building.

(a) The whole building energy consumption data shall not be deemed confidential information by the electric and gas companies for purposes of delivery to the building owner.

(b) Electric and gas companies will not be required to acquire explicit authorization for data release by the individual tenants.

(7) For covered buildings with fewer than five tenants, electric and gas companies shall deliver whole building energy consumption data to the building owner if the building tenants provide written or electronic consent for the delivery of the tenant's energy data to the building owner.

(a) The building tenant's consent may be provided in a lease agreement provision.

(b) The building tenant's consent is not required if an electric or gas company customer vacates the covered building before explicitly denying consent for the delivery of the tenant's energy data to the building owner.

(8) When providing whole-building consumption data to a property with onsite generation of renewable electricity (for example, solar or wind energy), electric and gas companies shall ensure that the consumption values delivered to the building owner capture total gross grid electricity consumption as metered by the electric or gas company, rather than net, or net-metered, consumption of grid electricity.

B. District Energy Providers.

(1) Starting no later than January 1, 2025, district energy providers shall maintain all records that are necessary to comply with this regulation for a period of not less than 5 years. At the request of the Department, such records shall be made available for inspection and audit by the Department.

(2) District energy providers shall provide greenhouse gas emissions factors per unit of district energy input (steam, hot water, chilled water, etc.) to the owners of covered buildings and to the Department for benchmarking and compliance purposes.

(3) Emissions factors and a full and detailed accounting of their calculation shall be provided by the district energy provider by March 1st of each calendar year and cover the previous calendar year based on actual fuel consumption and system performance data. The Department may require a third party review of such calculations paid for by the district energy provider.

(4) District energy providers shall use methodology for allocating emissions that will be based on the "Efficiency Method" in the World Resources Institute's "Calculation tool for direct emissions from stationary combustion: Allocation of GHG Emissions from a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Plant".

Md. Code Regs. 26.28.02.04

Regulation .04 adopted effective 51:25 Md. R. 1142, eff. 12/23/2024.