If you own a commercial building anywhere along the Highway 97 spine — from Redmond’s retail strip down through Bend’s Old Mill District, or out in Prineville and Sisters — Central Oregon BPS compliance is now a date on your calendar, not a someday problem. Oregon’s Building Performance Standard (OAR 330-300) covers commercial, hotel, and motel buildings of 35,000 square feet and up across Deschutes, Crook, and Jefferson counties, with the first Tier 1 deadlines landing in 2028. This is the regional hub: how the standard hits each Central Oregon city differently, why the high-desert climate changes the math, and what to do about it before the clock runs out.

Central Oregon is a single economic region split across several small-to-mid-size cities, so it makes sense to look at it as one market. The covered buildings cluster in predictable places — resort and hotel properties around Bend, the big-format retail and airport-area industrial in Redmond, the data centers and civic buildings in Prineville, and the lodging and light commercial in Sisters. Each has its own profile. What they share is a climate that pushes baseline energy use up.

Why the High Desert Changes Your EUI

Energy Use Intensity (EUI) is the number BPS measures you against — total annual energy divided by square footage, in kBtu/sq ft/year. Central Oregon buildings carry a structural disadvantage here. Bend sits at roughly 3,600 feet and logs far more heating degree days than the Willamette Valley; Redmond and Prineville run higher still, north of 6,000 heating degree days a year — roughly 40% more heating demand than a comparable building in Portland.

That means a perfectly ordinary office or hotel in Bend will post a higher raw EUI than the same building in Eugene, purely because of the weather. ODOE’s performance targets, which derive from ASHRAE Standard 100 with Oregon Amendments, account for climate zone — but the gap between a high-desert building’s actual EUI and its target is often wider than owners expect, and that gap is exactly what triggers a mandatory audit.

Central Oregon BPS Snapshot

Data Point	Detail
Counties covered	Deschutes, Crook, Jefferson
Primary electric utility	Pacific Power
Rural electric provider	Central Electric Cooperative
Natural gas utility	Cascade Natural Gas
Heating degree days (Redmond/Prineville)	~6,000+ per year
Bend elevation	~3,600 ft
Typical commercial EUI range	45–130 kBtu/sq ft/yr
First Tier 1 deadline	June 1, 2028 (200,000+ sq ft)
Tier 2 reporting deadline	July 1, 2028
Audit pricing (flat fee)	$7,500–$17,500

How the Standard Splits Across the Region

A quick refresher on which buildings owe what. Under OAR 330-300, nonresidential, hotel, and motel buildings of 35,000 square feet and up are Tier 1, with staggered deadlines: June 1, 2028 for buildings 200,000 sq ft and over, June 1, 2029 for 90,000–200,000 sq ft, and June 1, 2030 for 35,000–90,000 sq ft. Smaller commercial buildings between 20,000 and 35,000 sq ft, plus multifamily, schools, hospitals, and universities of 35,000 sq ft and up, are Tier 2 and must benchmark and report by July 1, 2028 — no audit mandate, no penalties.

The piece most Central Oregon owners get wrong: the ASHRAE Level 2 audit is conditional, not automatic. It’s required only for Tier 1 buildings whose EUI exceeds their target. Those owners must notify ODOE at least 180 days before their compliance date, then complete a Qualified Energy Auditor (QEA) audit before the deadline. Because high-desert buildings tend to miss their target, a larger share of Central Oregon’s covered stock will land in audit territory than in milder parts of the state. The honest move is to find out where you stand now rather than assume you’re fine.

City-by-City: Where the Covered Buildings Are

Bend. The region’s largest commercial market — roughly 13.7 million square feet across about 900 tracked buildings, anchored by St. Charles Health System and a deep hospitality base in the Old Mill District and along the resort corridor. Healthcare and hotel buildings dominate the 35,000+ sq ft category, and both are energy-intensive. Full detail on the city’s building stock and deadlines is on the Bend BPS compliance page.

Redmond. Central Oregon’s fastest-growing city, past 40,000 residents, with covered buildings concentrated along the South Highway 97 retail corridor, the Redmond Airport industrial area, and the Canal Boulevard medical corridor. A lot of the stock is post-2000 construction — younger, but rarely compliant. See the Redmond BPS compliance page for the corridor-by-corridor breakdown.

Prineville. Crook County’s seat is best known for its hyperscale data centers, but those are largely owner-operated and energy-managed separately. The BPS-relevant stock is the civic, retail, and lodging buildings downtown and along the Highway 26 corridor, plus county facilities. Prineville’s covered building count is smaller, but the high heating load and older building stock mean the buildings that do qualify often miss target by a wide margin.

Sisters. Smaller still, with a tourism-driven commercial base — lodging, restaurants, and retail serving visitors headed to the mountains. Most individual buildings fall under the 35,000 sq ft threshold, but larger lodging properties and a handful of mixed-use developments can qualify. Sisters owners should confirm square footage carefully before assuming they’re exempt.

The Compliance Pathway for a Central Oregon Building

The sequence is the same whether your building is in Bend or Prineville, but the timeline is tighter than it looks:

Confirm coverage. Pull gross floor area excluding parking garage area. At or above 35,000 sq ft nonresidential, you’re Tier 1; 20,000–35,000 sq ft, you’re Tier 2.
Benchmark your EUI. Collect 12 months of Pacific Power, Central Electric Cooperative, and Cascade Natural Gas data, enter it in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and compare against your ODOE target.
Determine whether you’ll miss target. This is the fork. If your EUI is over target as a Tier 1 building, you’re in audit territory and must notify ODOE 180+ days out.
Complete an ASHRAE Level 2 audit. A QEA documents your baseline, models improvements, and produces the report ODOE requires — not just good energy advice, but the specific compliance framework.
Implement and report. Execute cost-effective measures and submit through ODOE before your compliance date.

Run that backward from a June 2028 deadline and you need to be benchmarking now — utility data collection alone often eats two to three months.

Building Types We Help in Central Oregon

We coordinate with ODOE-listed energy professionals to scope and complete compliance for the building types that dominate this region: resort and hotel properties around Bend and Sisters, big-format retail along Redmond’s South 97 corridor, medical office and healthcare facilities tied to St. Charles, warehouse and flex-space near Redmond Airport, civic and county buildings in Prineville, multifamily and senior-care buildings across Deschutes County, and mixed-use developments in the downtown cores.

Incentives That Offset the Cost

ODOE and Energy Trust of Oregon incentives may offset compliance and audit costs for Central Oregon owners. The ODOE Early Compliance Assistance and Performance Program (ECAPP) offers up to $0.85 per square foot, capped between $10,000 and $50,000 per building, for work completed at least a year before your deadline — which rewards moving early. Energy Trust of Oregon adds BPS Pathway coaching with up to $3,000 in incentives, plus its standard commercial equipment and custom project incentives. Pacific Power and Cascade Natural Gas customers across the region can stack these. The ASHRAE Standard 100 that underpins the audit defines exactly what the report must contain.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Bend or Redmond building need a BPS audit?

Only if it’s a Tier 1 building (35,000+ sq ft nonresidential) and its EUI exceeds the ODOE target. Because Central Oregon’s high-desert climate inflates baseline energy use, a larger share of covered buildings here miss target than in western Oregon. The only way to know is to benchmark — a compliance audit answers it definitively.

Are Prineville’s data centers covered by Oregon BPS?

The hyperscale data centers are generally owner-operated under separate energy management arrangements. The BPS-relevant stock in Prineville is the conventional commercial, civic, and lodging buildings of 35,000+ sq ft. If you own one of those, the standard applies regardless of what the data centers are doing.

My Sisters building is under 35,000 sq ft — am I exempt?

Buildings under 20,000 sq ft aren’t currently covered. Between 20,000 and 35,000 sq ft, nonresidential buildings are Tier 2 and must benchmark and report by July 1, 2028, with no audit mandate. Confirm your gross floor area precisely before assuming you’re out — it’s easy to underestimate.

What happens if a Central Oregon building misses the deadline?

Penalties apply only to non-compliant Tier 1 buildings and are capped at $5,000 plus $1 per square foot of gross floor area per year for a continuing violation. ODOE issues a Notice of Violation and Opportunity to Correct first, so there’s a chance to fix it — but the cheapest path is compliance, not penalties.

Central Oregon Owners: Your 2028 Deadline Is Less Than Two Years Away

From Bend to Prineville, the buildings that wait until 2027 to start will be scrambling — utility data collection, benchmarking, and an ASHRAE Level 2 audit don’t compress into a few months, especially in a region where most covered buildings are likely to miss target. Find out exactly where your building stands while there’s still time to act on it and capture early-compliance incentives.

Schedule your Central Oregon compliance audit. We’ll establish your EUI baseline, measure the gap against your BPS target, and hand you a prioritized roadmap — flat fee, no hourly billing. Schedule your compliance audit or review how the process works and our pricing.

Already know you’ll need to track EUI year over year? Set up annual benchmarking so your ODOE reporting stays current without the last-minute fire drill.

Central Oregon Building Performance Standard