The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has established ambitious goals to improve the energy efficiency requirements of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) for residential buildings. DOE has established near- and long-term goals of 30% and 50% energy efficiency improvements, respectively, compared to the 2006 IECC.

This report presents DOE’s approach to calculating residential energy consumption for the purpose of estimating energy savings attributable to improvements in the code. This approach is then used to estimate the national average energy savings, relative to the 2006 IECC, resulting from the proposed improvements DOE submitted and supported for the 2012 IECC. DOE estimates a total reduction in energy use of 30.6% for the projected requirements of the 2012 IECC as compared to the 2006 IECC, assuming the use of the primary compliance option that involves standard-efficiency equipment. Were the high-equipment efficiency option used, the projected savings would be 0.9% higher, at 31.5%.