The 30% Solution 2012 - Overview

At its 2008 Final Action Hearings in Minneapolis, the International Code Council (ICC) adopted 14 of the 21 elements of EECC’s original comprehensive proposal (known as “The 30% Solution”). The prestigious research firm ICF International estimates that homes built to the 2009 IECC standards will save 12.3% under the simple “prescriptive” method and could save 14.7% or more using the more complicated “performance-based” method.

Fewer chances to meet tough congressional efficiency targets.

Since then, a new ICC rule has halved the number of opportunities to boost the IECC’s energy efficiency by eliminating “Supplement” model codes that were considered midway between the three-year code development periods. In addition, the full House of Representatives and the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee have each passed legislation that would require IECC to meet 30% and 50% energy efficiency “targets” or face a “national” model code that would be written by US DOE. While this legislation has not yet been signed into law, EECC takes these targets seriously. The Department of Energy – which was one of the original proponents of a 30% boost in the energy efficiency of the 2006 IECC – has urged stakeholders to develop proposals that would “make up the difference” between the roughly 13% gain achieved in the 2009 IECC and the 30% goal. Consequently, most of the package proposals introduced for the 2009/2010 Code Development process would increase energy efficiency by 17%.

EECC's proposal is the exception

EECC is the exception, focusing instead on the full spectrum of readily available “state-of-the-shelf” efficiency technologies instead of specific efficiency percentage. EECC’s complete package of proposals – which we call “The 30% Solution 2012” – is a dynamic set of improvements designed to achieve as much as a 30% boost over the 2009 IECC and as much as 40% boost over the 2006 IECC. One element of “The 30% Solution 2012,” EECC’s comprehensive proposal, EC-25/“30Plus,” would increase the energy efficiency of the 2009 IECC by 20-25%.