Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC)

ECBC sets minimum energy performance standards for design and construction of new commercial building with connected load of 500 kW or contract demand of 600 KVA and above. The code is also applicable to all buildings with a conditioned floor area of 1,000 m2 (10,000 ft2) or greater and it is recommended for all other buildings.

Purpose

To design energy efficient building in a most cost effective way. The ECBC compliant building’s energy consumption would be 120-160kW/m2/year i.e. at least 30-40% less energy compared to a typical commercial building in India whose average energy consumption is 200kW/m2/year.

Code Provisions

Building Envelopes	U-factor	G value
HVAC system	Hot Water System	Interior and Exterior Lightning
Electrical Power and Motors

Compliance Approach

Prescriptive Approach

• Each component must meet minimum performance standard
• No Flexibility

Trade off Approach

• Flexibility in minimum performance standard for each component but overall systems performance must comply with ECBC requirement.
• Experts advise, Energy simulation and Building Performance modeling techniques are required to demonstrate compliance

Whole Building Performance Approach

• Complete flexibility in meeting ECBC compliance requirement
• Actual building is compared against ECBC notional building.
• Experts advise, Energy simulation and Building Performance modeling techniques are required to demonstrate compliance.
• With this approach the project team can analyze feasibility of different options in terms of cost and energy saving and opt for most feasible options.

ECBC compliance requirement