I recently completed a job that is still in the design phase. I had to show energy compliance of the building shell (envelope). Any residential or non-residential building being constructed in California on or after January 1, 2020 has to comply with the latest 2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the California Energy Commission has done some hard work to consolidate many features from the Energy Standards and the Appendices in the Adobe documents (forms) that you need to fill out to show energy compliance--in my case the 2019-NRCC-ENV-E form. For example, when you enter the zip code of the property you are showing compliance for, the form automatically populates the Climate Zone box for you. Similarly, you don't have to look into the joint appendices to figure out the U-value of a certain type of construction e.g., 2X6 wood framing with R-19 cavity insulation; you select one of the options available through a drop down menu and on your selection of the option, the form automatically populates the box of the U-value for that particular option. [Note that in previous energy standards the tables for Prescriptive Compliance showed R-values that you had to comply with; in the 2019 Energy Standards it is the maximum U-value that is specified in the tables.]
Overall, the California Energy Commission has done a decent job in creating the 'intelligent' PDF documents for energy consultants to work with. Kudos to the CEC!
