The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America are revising their residential energy standard with a goal of making it 50 percent more efficient than the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code.

The residential sector consumes one-fifth of all primary energy used by the United States and more than half of all energy used by buildings. The ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.2-2007R — or Energy Efficient Design of Low-Rise Residential Buildings — is open for public comment through Dec. 19. To submit comments, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.

“This new 90.2 seeks to deliver residential building energy performance that is at least 50 percent more efficient than the energy efficiency defined by the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code,” said Theresa Weston, chair of the Standard 90.2 committee. “Key to accomplishing this objective is delivery of an accurate, flexible performance-based tool to enable user creativity in meeting the performance objectives. The new standard contains detailed rules governing the energy modeling and analyses needed to determine compliance with the performance objectives.”

Weston added that a number of new building envelope, HVAC, lighting and equipment technologies exist to help achieve greater levels of residential energy efficiency.