A Colorado city is to introduce an energy efficiency grading scheme.

The Building Energy Scoring and Disclosure programme will rank commercial and residential buildings in Fort Collins on their energy efficiency to give buyers a better idea of what to expect from utility bills.

It is yet to be decided how the scoring system will work and whether it will be mandatory or optional.

“At this point, we have more questions than answers,” said John Phelan, Energy Services Manager at Fort Collins Utilities.

“If you’re going to buy a building, it’d be nice to know whether it’s a high energy-user or a low one and right now there’s no way to determine that. What has to be designed, what buildings do we start with and how long do we take to phase those in? In other cities that was a pretty long process.”

Large-scale residential energy scoring is rare in the US, only taking place in Austin, Texas and a few other larger cities.

The programme will help Fort Collins pursue its Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 2005 levels by 2020, 80% by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.