A new report commissioned by the Rhode Island General Assembly offers a laundry list of problems — and up to $1.4 million in annual costs — preventing the state from collecting energy and emissions information from large privately owned buildings.
Yet the city of Providence has already managed to pull off its own version of a building energy benchmarking program, with one half-time employee and a $28,000 city budget, according to information from Priscilla de la Cruz, city sustainability director.
The state’s Act on Climate Law mandates the state cut emissions 45% below 1990 levels by 2030. Preliminary modeling already suggests the state might miss its 2030 target if it doesn’t take action, including in the building sector, which accounted for nearly half of annual emissions in 2022, the most recent data available.
“You can’t reduce what you don’t measure,” said Tina Munter, Rhode Island policy advocate for Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “This is a long-term investment for the future of Rhode Island in order for us to meet the mandatory Act on Climate emissions reductions. It is on our state to prioritize something we need to do, which was already signed into law by our governor in 2021.”
Rep. Rebecca Kislak, a Providence Democrat, has been trying to warm legislative leaders to the prospect of creating a state-building energy benchmarking program for years. Her decarbonization bill last year was stripped down to a study by the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, which published a report on Feb. 10.
Kislak worries it’s already too late to meet the 2030 deadline.
“As I was putting together the draft this year, I kept looking at these dates and thinking, ‘Are we really going to wait this long?’” Kislak said in a recent interview.
Kislak’s 2025 bill, introduced in the Rhode Island House of Representatives on Feb. 13, accompanies similar, though not identical legislation in the Senate from Pawtucket Democratic Sen. Meghan Kallman.
The legislation calls on the state to begin tracking energy usage from public and privately owned buildings larger than 50,000 square feet in 2026. Private buildings between 25,000 and 50,000 square feet would have to begin reporting energy and emissions usage in 2027.
The annual reporting data would be used to develop building emissions standards by June 2029.
The Environmental Council of Rhode Island, a consortium of 60 organizations and individuals, considers the legislation a top priority this year — the second consecutive year.
Gov. Dan McKee appears on board with at least part of the plan, allocating $139,000 in his proposed fiscal 2026 budget for one new employee to begin tracking energy and emissions from state-owned buildings.
However, there is no money or acknowledgment of expanding the program to the private sector in his budget proposal.
Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, cited lack of data and infrastructure as barriers to creating a program for private-sector buildings.
“Expanding to the private sector should be considered in the future based on funding availability and the creation of data and building inventory infrastructure,” DaRocha said.
Logistical challenges
Creating a list of the estimated 2,300 buildings statewide larger than 25,000 square feet requires pulling from multiple datasets, including municipal tax databases, GIS systems and commercial information, according to the OER report. Meanwhile, the state’s primary utility supplier, Rhode Island Energy, is still developing a system to automate individual building energy usage based on customer bills, the report says.
“Given the lack of requisite data and infrastructure to support the rollout of a program for large municipal and private buildings, OER should focus on leading a program for certain large state-owned and state-occupied buildings that would lay the foundation for future expansion to large municipal and private buildings,” the report states.
The OER estimated an initial $600,000 cost to expand an energy benchmarking program beyond state-owned buildings, rising to $1.4 million for technical support to implement performance standards around emissions.
Emily Koo, senior policy director and Rhode Island program director at Acadia Center, was unconvinced the problems were as big, or costly, as the report suggested.
“Providence has already done the work to stand this kind of program up,” said Koo, who previously worked as the city’s sustainability director. “This is the absolute lowest-hanging fruit.”
The capital city released its inaugural building energy report in December 2024 with energy and emissions usage for 63 city-owned buildings above 10,000 square feet. The program will expand to include privately owned large buildings within the city limits this year.
Three states — including Massachusetts — and 16 cities have passed laws requiring statewide benchmarking of energy and emissions use from large public, commercial and multi-family residential buildings, according to data collected by the Institute for Market Transformation. Additional states and cities have enacted more stringent laws that also require actions by building owners to reduce emissions.
What about federal money?
Providence’s initial rollout hasn’t been seamless. For example, the city didn’t realize that Rhode Island Energy would not be able to automatically enter private billing data into a third-party dashboard used to track energy usage. The city and utility company are working to teach the estimated 300 businesses affected how to manually request and upload the necessary information until automation is completed, de la Cruz said.
Evelyn Garcia, a spokesperson for Rhode Island Energy, said the company is working to evaluate vendors now, developing the interface in the second quarter of the year. She declined to comment on the state legislation until legislative hearings occur.
Another potential sore spot: the availability of federal funding. The city has leaned on federal money to prop up its program and promoted separate federal incentives for building owners to reduce emissions through energy efficiency upgrades and conversions to electric heat pumps.
“Recent changes at the federal level have introduced uncertainty around the availability and consistency of energy-related grants, making it challenging to predict current and future funding opportunities,” the report states.
Since Jan. 27, OER has been locked out of $125 million in approved federal funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, according to a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island.
Munter suggested low-interest loans through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank’s Efficient Buildings Fund as an alternative funding source for municipalities and school districts.
“What is the cost of inaction?” she asked. “We’re talking about our ability to be resilient in the face of climate change.”
The Rhode Island General Assembly is on winter recess this week. Hearings on Kislak’s and Kallman’s bills had not been scheduled as of Thursday.
This article was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
