Even if your state just adopted the 2021 IECC, the next wave of energy code changes is already visible on the horizon. Smart building owners are installing subcircuit monitoring infrastructure today that will satisfy not only current codes, but the 2024 IECC, Inflation Reduction Act compliance requirements, and the growing wave of Building Performance Standards. This post explains what’s coming, why it matters, and how Emergent Metering’s modular, open-protocol approach to subcircuit monitoring and unified front-end analytics positions your building for every foreseeable regulatory requirement.
The 2024 IECC: What’s Coming and Who’s Moving First
The 2024 IECC was published in July 2024 and represents the most aggressive energy code update in the code’s history. While virtually no states have fully adopted it yet—state adoption typically takes one to three years—the adoption pipeline is already full. Rhode Island became the first state in the Northeast with an effective energy code based on the 2024 IECC, effective December 1, 2025, including electric-ready provisions for residential and commercial buildings through Appendices RK and CH.
Eight additional states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are reviewing the 2024 IECC for adoption: Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Connecticut’s fast-track adoption mechanism (18-month mandatory adoption of new model codes) means it could have the 2024 IECC in effect by late 2026. Massachusetts is likely to incorporate 2024 IECC elements into its next Stretch Code and Specialized Code updates. Colorado’s Energy Code Board has already published the Low Energy and Carbon Code based on the 2024 IECC, which jurisdictions must adopt when updating their building codes after July 1, 2026.
The 2024 edition expands energy monitoring requirements beyond the 2021 edition’s scope. It strengthens the additional efficiency credit system (Section C406), increases the number of credits required, and provides additional credit opportunities for buildings that install monitoring beyond the minimum requirement. It introduces mandatory renewable energy provisions, meaning buildings will need to meter both consumption and on-site generation. The building envelope, HVAC efficiency, and lighting requirements are all more stringent, which increases the value of operational energy data because tighter design margins leave less room for operational inefficiency.
For metering, the practical impact of the 2024 IECC is broader monitoring scope (including renewable generation and EV charging), tighter accuracy requirements, and greater emphasis on continuous performance verification rather than one-time code compliance at the time of certificate of occupancy. Buildings designed and metered to meet the 2021 IECC today should include additional sensor capacity and communication infrastructure to accommodate these expanded requirements without a costly retrofit.
Inflation Reduction Act Funding: How Metering Data Unlocks Federal Incentives
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $330 million in grants for states to adopt the latest building energy codes, including the 2021 IECC and ASHRAE 90.1-2019. An additional $670 million is available for state adoption of stretch energy codes aimed at achieving net-zero energy buildings, including the net-zero appendices of the 2021 IECC. This billion-dollar federal investment is accelerating state adoption timelines and pushing jurisdictions to leapfrog intermediate code versions.
For building owners, IRA compliance often requires documented proof of energy performance—which means metered data. The Section 179D Energy Efficient Commercial Buildings Deduction provides tax deductions of up to $5.00 per square foot for buildings that achieve substantial energy savings compared to ASHRAE 90.1 baselines. Claiming this deduction requires an energy model and, increasingly, post-construction performance data to validate the model’s assumptions. Buildings with comprehensive subcircuit monitoring can provide the granular consumption data needed to support Section 179D claims.
The IRA also created new incentives for energy-efficient social housing, affordable housing, and rural development projects. HUD and USDA’s April 2024 Final Determination adopting the 2021 IECC and ASHRAE 90.1-2019 as minimum requirements for federally financed housing means these incentives are directly tied to code compliance, including metering requirements. Projects that build with comprehensive monitoring infrastructure are better positioned to document compliance and access federal funding.
For organizations pursuing these incentives, PowerRadar’s automated reporting feature generates the energy consumption documentation needed for federal compliance submissions. Cost Reports with tariff-based analysis show actual energy costs. Sustainability Reports calculate carbon emissions using configurable CO2e factors. Benchmarking against ASHRAE baselines demonstrates savings. All reports are time-stamped, stored in the cloud, and exportable in formats suitable for federal filing.
Building Performance Standards: The Ongoing Compliance Driver That Never Expires
Building codes apply at the time of construction and are enforced through the permitting process. Once a building receives its certificate of occupancy, the code is satisfied. Building Performance Standards (BPS) are fundamentally different—they apply to existing buildings on an ongoing basis, requiring continuous energy performance reporting and improvement. For building owners, this means the metering infrastructure installed during construction must continue operating and providing accurate data for the life of the building.
New York City’s Local Law 97 is the most prominent BPS in the country, requiring buildings over 25,000 square feet to meet progressively tightening carbon emission limits through 2050, with penalties of $268 per metric ton of CO2e over the limit. Washington DC’s Building Energy Performance Standards require existing buildings over 10,000 square feet to meet energy performance targets with compliance verified through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmarking. Seattle, Boston, Denver, St. Louis, Montgomery County (MD), and numerous other jurisdictions have enacted or are developing their own BPS laws.
The common requirement across all BPS laws is granular energy data. You cannot calculate carbon emissions without knowing how much electricity, gas, steam, and thermal energy the building consumed. You cannot benchmark against peers without disaggregated end-use data. You cannot demonstrate year-over-year improvement without historical baselines. And you cannot identify cost-effective efficiency opportunities without subcircuit-level visibility into which systems are consuming the most energy and where waste is occurring.
Building owners who install comprehensive subcircuit monitoring at the time of construction—even in jurisdictions that have not yet adopted a BPS—gain three critical advantages. First, they have the data foundation in place when the BPS inevitably arrives, avoiding the expensive and disruptive process of retrofitting metering into an operating building. Second, they can begin reducing energy consumption immediately through the operational insights that subcircuit monitoring provides, building a documented track record of improvement. Third, they can proactively report energy performance to prospective tenants and investors, positioning their building as an ESG-compliant asset in a market that increasingly values sustainability.
Designing a Future-Proof Subcircuit Monitoring Infrastructure
A future-proof monitoring strategy starts with installing more monitoring capacity than the current code requires. If your jurisdiction mandates metering for five end-use categories, design for seven or eight—including on-site renewable energy generation, EV charging loads, tenant-level disaggregation, and backup generator fuel consumption. The incremental cost of additional Panoramic Power wireless sensors at $190 each is a fraction of what a metering retrofit would cost after the building is occupied.
Design decisions that pay dividends over the building’s lifecycle include:
• Install PAN-42 meters on all three-phase HVAC equipment, not just the largest units. Smaller RTUs and split systems that are monitored with current-only PAN-10/PAN-12 sensors today may need true power measurement under future codes. The PAN-42’s $389 price point is modest compared to the cost of retrofitting measurement later.
• Install sensors on circuits that are currently exempt. Tenant spaces under 2,500 square feet are exempt from end-use submetering under the 2021 IECC—but future BPS laws and the 2024 IECC may lower or eliminate those exemptions. A PAN-10 sensor on each small-tenant feed costs $190 today and provides data that may be required within 5 years.
• Use the Gen 4+ Bridge’s Modbus port to integrate non-electric meters from day one. Even if nonelectrical metering is not yet required in your jurisdiction, connecting gas meters and BTU meters to PowerRadar during construction establishes the data pipeline and ensures that nonelectrical data appears in the same unified front end as electrical data.
• Choose integration platforms with open protocols. Emergent Metering’s product ecosystem supports Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP, BACnet, pulse output, analog 4–20mA, and LoRaWAN wireless. This protocol diversity means any future meter technology can integrate into your existing infrastructure without replacing the data acquisition platform.
• Deploy Obvius/Leviton AcquiSuite or Honeywell JACE controllers for on-premises data redundancy. While PowerRadar provides cloud-based data storage, an on-premises data hub ensures that data is preserved even during internet outages and provides a local access point for building engineers who need real-time data without cloud latency.
• Specify Packaged Panels for mechanical rooms and remote locations. Emergent’s pre-configured panels combine metering hardware, power supplies, bridges, and integration components in weatherproof enclosures. Installing these during construction is dramatically simpler and less expensive than assembling components in the field after the building is occupied.
Why Emergent Metering Is the Future-Proof Choice
Emergent Metering’s product portfolio is deliberately designed around three principles that align with future-proofing: open standards, modular scalability, and unified front-end analytics.
Open standards mean that every product in the Emergent catalog communicates through industry-standard protocols. The Panoramic Power sensors use a proprietary 915 MHz radio to communicate with the bridge, but the bridge exposes data through Modbus and cloud APIs. The Leviton S7100 BCMs communicate via Modbus RTU. The Obvius/Leviton AcquiSuite hubs support Modbus, BACnet, and pulse. The Honeywell JACE controllers support virtually every building protocol through Niagara Framework drivers. This means Emergent’s metering infrastructure can integrate with any BMS, any energy management software, and any future technology that speaks an open protocol.
Modular scalability means that adding monitoring capacity is as simple as purchasing additional sensors and registering them in PowerRadar. There is no hardware or software limit on the number of sensors per bridge, the number of bridges per site, or the number of sites per account. A building that starts with 50 sensors today can grow to 200 sensors next year without replacing any infrastructure. The cloud-based PowerRadar platform scales automatically to accommodate additional data volume.
Unified front-end analytics mean that every piece of data—from every sensor, every meter, every energy type, every building—flows into PowerRadar as the single pane of glass. Building operators, facility managers, ownership groups, and engineering teams all access the same platform with role-based permissions. There is no need to reconcile data between disconnected systems, no risk of reporting discrepancies, and no duplication of data management effort.
For buildings that need to monitor renewable energy production, Emergent’s electric sensors can meter solar PV inverter output and battery storage systems alongside building loads. The PAN-42 installed on the solar inverter output provides true power measurement of generation, while sensors on building loads capture consumption, enabling PowerRadar to display net energy usage and track progress toward net-zero goals.
For compressed air systems—a common source of industrial energy waste—VPFlowScope and IFM compressed air meters identify leaks and measure system efficiency. For buildings with EV charging infrastructure, PAN-10 or PAN-12 sensors on Level 2 charger circuits and PAN-42 meters on DC fast charger feeds provide the separate EV metering that the 2024 IECC and many municipal codes now require.
Perhaps most importantly, Emergent Metering is backed by Emergent Energy Solutions, which provides turnkey project implementation for organizations that need more than just hardware. From energy audits to GHG management strategies, from utility bill analysis to measurement and verification protocols, the Emergent team helps building owners turn metered data into measurable performance improvement and documented regulatory compliance.