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the Building Energy Performance Programme in Philadelphia

Philadelphia tune-ups, the obligation that hides behind benchmarking.

Non-residential buildings of 50,000 sq ft and above owe a building tune-up on a five-year cycle. It is a completely separate obligation from the annual June 30 benchmarking filing, and buildings that file faithfully still miss it.

No obligation. We will tell you if you do not need us.
the Building Energy Performance Programme at a glance
What it is A building tune-up An operational assessment with required corrections, reported to the city on the programme cycle.
Who is in Non-residential, 50,000 sq ft and up Multifamily is inside the benchmarking programme but outside the tune-up requirement.
Cycle Every five years Larger buildings report first, on the schedule the city publishes by size.
Relationship to benchmarking Separate Filing benchmarking every year does nothing for the tune-up obligation.

Dates and thresholds change. We confirm the current requirement for your specific building before anyone acts on it.

What the standard actually asks of a building.

Philadelphia runs two programmes and most owners only know about one. The annual benchmarking filing is the visible one. The Building Energy Performance Programme requires a periodic tune-up of the building systems, performed and reported on a published cycle, and it is where the real cost and the real exposure sit.

A tune-up is an operational exercise rather than a capital project. The point is to find and correct the things that drift, controls, schedules, setpoints and equipment that is running when nobody needs it, and to document the result. That work usually pays for itself, which is why we frame it as an efficiency project rather than a compliance tax.

Before scoping anything, we check whether a building already qualifies out on performance. That check costs nothing and it occasionally removes the whole scope.

What decides your outcome
Two programmes, not one
Annual benchmarking is only half of it. The Building Energy Performance Programme runs a separate five-year tune-up cycle for non-residential buildings, and we check both every time.
Tune-up dates catch people
Larger non-residential buildings have tune-up reporting obligations on their own schedule, separate from the June 30 filing.
City only
Pennsylvania has no statewide mandate, so a Philadelphia filing is the whole obligation. That is simpler than most jurisdictions we work in.
The services behind this page

How we get you to the standard

Establish the position, choose the route, then document the work.

1
Establish the real position
Verified floor area, clean data, and the gap to the standard expressed in the terms the programme actually uses.
2
Model the options
High-performance alternatives checked first, because a building that already performs well may qualify out. Only then do we scope the actual tune-up.
3
Sequence the work
Measures ordered against your capital plan and your board calendar, with incentives factored in rather than left on the table.
4
Document as you go
Every measure, invoice and audit recommendation captured while it is happening. Reconstructing this later is the expensive way.
5
File and follow through
Tune-up completed by a qualified professional and reported on your cycle date, with the annual benchmarking filing kept separate and current.
The exposure, honestly

You can be perfectly compliant on benchmarking and still be out of compliance here.

This is the most common Philadelphia surprise. A building with an unbroken benchmarking record discovers it has missed a tune-up cycle, because nobody connected the two obligations.

The fix is a calendar item rather than a crisis, provided it is caught early. We screen both obligations at intake for exactly that reason.

Received a letter?

What a Philadelphia notice usually means.

The city runs two programmes and the letter will be about one of them.

Send us the letter
Benchmarking non-compliance
The annual June 30 filing is missing or incomplete for the year named.
Building Energy Performance Programme notice
A tune-up is due or overdue for your cycle. Buildings with perfect benchmarking records receive these, because the obligations are separate.

Send us the letter itself, not a summary. We read it for the six things that decide the response: who sent it, which building and identifier it names, what period it covers, what it says you failed to do, the cure date, and whether it is a first notice or an escalation. We never quote a running penalty total, and we cure first, then talk to the regulator.

Why boards bring us in

Performance standards are where the money is, and where bad advice is most expensive.

Built for boards
Most of our clients are condo and co-op boards and the managers who serve them. We present in plain English, on your meeting schedule.
We read the primary sources
Twenty-six jurisdictions, each with its own portal, deadline and enforcement style. We work from the ordinance, the regulator’s FAQ and the covered building list, not from last year’s memory.
Credentialed
Certified Energy Manager on staff, Portfolio Manager specialists, and the credentials the verification work requires.
One accountable partner
We are not engineers and we do not pretend to be. We manage the process, coordinate the right vendors, and own the outcome.
Owners and managers we work with
FirstService Residential Legum & Norman EJF Real Estate Services Comsource Management Barkan Management Howard University Regency Centers Montgomery County Green Bank

Questions about the Building Energy Performance Programme

If the building is non-residential and 50,000 sq ft or above, yes. They are separate obligations on separate schedules, and one does not satisfy the other.

No. An audit tells you what could be done. A tune-up requires the operational corrections to actually be made and documented. The tune-up is the cheaper of the two in most buildings.

Sometimes. There are performance-based routes worth checking before commissioning any work, and we check them first because it costs nothing to look.

Benchmarking is the annual data filing. The tune-up is a periodic operational requirement for non-residential buildings, with its own reporting and its own schedule. They are separate obligations and you can be compliant on one and not the other.

Keep reading

The pages that usually matter next for a Philadelphia building.

Annual filing Benchmarking in Philadelphia The annual filing, what is reported, and how we keep the record clean. Supply strategy Procurement in Philadelphia Where competitive supply is actually available, and where it is not. Everything we do here Full services in Philadelphia Everything Honeydew manages here, compliance and energy services together.
What is BEPS? All Honeydew services Every region we serve Latest rule changes on the blog

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