§196-30 Public buildings; benchmarks; retro-commissioning guidelines; energy savings performance contracts. (a) By December 31, 2010, each state department with responsibilities for the design and construction of public buildings and facilities shall benchmark every existing public building that is either larger than five thousand square feet or uses more than eight thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity or energy per year and shall use the benchmark as a basis for determining the State's investment in improving the efficiency of its own building stock. Benchmarking shall be conducted using the ENERGY STAR portfolio management or equivalent tool. The chief energy officer of the Hawaii state energy office shall provide training to affected departments on the ENERGY STAR portfolio management or equivalent tool.

(b) Public buildings shall be retro-commissioned no less often than every five years. The chief energy officer of the Hawaii state energy office shall establish retro-commissioning guidelines by January 1, 2010.

(c) Departments may enter into energy savings performance contracts with a third party to cover the capital costs of energy-efficiency measures and distributed generation provided the terms of the energy savings performance contracts conform to the benchmark standard. The comptroller may review and exempt specific projects as appropriate to take into account cost-effectiveness.

Energy savings performance contracts shall be executed according to state guidelines issued by the comptroller, and the contracts shall be reviewed by the comptroller. To expedite energy savings performance contracting for public buildings, the department of accounting and general services shall develop a master energy savings performance contracts agreement that any department may use to contract with an energy savings performance contracts provider for energy-efficiency and renewable energy services.

(d) For existing public buildings that undergo a major retrofit or renovation, the department or departments responsible for design and construction shall make investments in efficiency; provided that the cost of the measures shall be recouped within twenty years. [L 2009, c 155, pt of §11; am L 2019, c 122, §3]