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Professional Briefing

💼Professional Briefing - Saturday, May 23, 2026

Good morning. Here's your industry read.

⚡Energy & Compliance

📋Building Performance Standards

  • Washington CBPS Tier 1 - June 1, 2026 (9 days out). Buildings 220,000+ sq ft must demonstrate compliance via the EUI target pathway or the investment-criteria pathway. EMP and O&M plans must be in place for any EUI-route submission. Tier 2 EMP/O&M plan deadline is July 1, 2026 (39 days out) - the documentation deliverable for Tier 2 (90,000–220,000 sq ft) sits 30 days behind Tier 1, even though full Tier 2 compliance isn't until June 2027. Last call to confirm any 90K+ sq ft client is staged for the July 1 plan, not waiting until next year.
  • Oregon ODOE Early Compliance funding round - applications due 5:00 PM July 10 (48 days out). ODOE held its guidance webinar May 15; recordings are typically posted within a week or two on the BPS pages. $1.2M total, ~$950K for Tier 1 (200K+ sq ft, compliance 2028) and ~$250K for Tier 2 (90K–200K sq ft, compliance 2029). Per-building incentives $10K–$50K for benchmarking, reporting, and energy audits. Reminder: ODOE moved building-owner data to a new BPS compliance portal beginning May 1, and the compliance/exemption software is targeted to publish by July 1 - if any client's portfolio looks incomplete in the new system right now, that's the migration, not an error.
  • Colorado - June 1, 2026 annual benchmarking deadline (9 days out). The 2026 interim performance requirement was removed by HB25-1269; focus is on 2030 BPS targets. Reporting season runs July 1 – November 1 this year, and the 2026 noncompliance penalty has been waived. Benchmarking report still due.
  • Philadelphia Tier 1 - June 1, 2026 (9 days out). First year of compliance for buildings 220,000+ sq ft. Flag for any multi-market portfolios.
  • Idaho - Still on 2018 IECC with state amendments. No state BPS. House Business Committee killed the 2024 IECC adoption package in February; state holds the line through at least the 2027 session.

Coalition-side: Lakewood, CO recently passed a benchmarking ordinance, and New Orleans and Madison, WI have shifted their enforcement deadlines - the BPS map continues to thicken at the city level even where state-level action stalls. Penalty exposure across the nine jurisdictions with active BPS laws still runs $100/day at the entry-level end to $268/ton CO₂ (NYC LL97), with documented exposure up to $7.5M for the largest buildings under DC BEPS.

🔌Utilities & Programs

Idaho Power PCA - June 1 effective date (9 days out), Case IPC-E-26-10. $51.56M, 3.02% average increase. Combined with the FCA, monthly impact for a typical 900 kWh residential customer is roughly $3.64 (3.15%). IPUC has not yet issued a final order, but the June 1 effective date remains in the docket and the case has not been suspended. Stacks on the 9.74% general rate increase that took effect January 2026 - cumulative 2026 pressure on Idaho Power commercial customers is well into double digits.

Avista 7.4% Idaho electric increase - in effect since May 1. Residential 939 kWh average bill moved from $115.54 to $124.44 (+$8.90/month). Written comments still accepted via puc.idaho.gov even after the May 14–15 virtual workshops.

Avista / Ford Hydro PPA - IPUC public-comment window closed May 11, reply comments around May 18. Modified-procedure review (Order No. 37009). If approved, the new three-year PPA runs July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2029. No final order yet on the IPUC docket.

Northern Lights Inc. Wildfire Mitigation Plan - IPUC still accepting written comments (Case C10-E-26-01, opened May 4). Northern Lights is the rural electric co-op covering Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai, and Pend Oreille counties. Same wildfire-plan review structure the IPUC is now applying to all regulated entities. Worth flagging if any client has properties in north Idaho.

🏛️Idaho Energy Policy

HB 911 (Electricity, New Large Loads) - fully in effect. IPUC approval is the regulatory gate for new electrical loads of 50 MW+ at a single service entrance. Service contracts must include a "no harm test" for existing customers, plus cost allocation, financial security, and dispute-resolution provisions. Continues to be the structural answer to the hyperscale-demand question - the active debate is whether it's sufficient to keep residential and small commercial ratepayers from subsidizing data-center growth.

Ada County zoning rewrite - solar restrictions still in play. The amended language "strongly discourages" (rather than prohibits) solar on prime farmland. No Board of Commissioners final vote since the April hearing - quiet week on this front, but the file is still open and either side can still move it.

Idaho net-metering - IPUC's September 2025 order cut Idaho Power residential solar export rates by 31%. Next formal review window opens April 2028. Use post-September 2025 rates for any 2026–2027 residential PV modeling.

Meta Kuna data center / rPlus Blacks Creek 520 MWdc / 400 MWac - Late 2026 Meta opening still tracking, with the contracted PV supply targeting commercial operation 2027–2028. Idaho Power carries the bridge load before contracted supply is online. Relevant context whenever a client asks how the data-center buildout connects to the rate-case stack.

🎓Industry Events

  • ASHRAE Idaho Golf Lesson - Thursday, May 29, 5:30–7:30 PM, Warm Springs Golf Course (Boise). Lead-in to the June tournament.
  • ASHRAE Idaho Golf Tournament - Friday, June 5, 8:00 AM–2:00 PM, Eagle Hills Golf Course, Eagle.
  • ASHRAE Idaho June Chapter Meeting - Wednesday, June 10, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM, U of I Water Center (322 E Front St, Boise).
  • ASHRAE Annual Conference - June 27–July 1, JW Marriott Austin, TX. Eight technical tracks; this year the program is leaning heavily into AI, decarbonization, and building-systems innovation.
  • ODOE Early Compliance application deadline - July 10, 5:00 PM Pacific. Not an event, but the next must-hit Oregon date.

💼Professional & Networking

Quieter regional calendar this week - most of the formal action is on the energy-policy side (Idaho Power PCA awaiting final order, ASHRAE rolling into its golf-and-chapter season).

  • ULI Idaho - Calendar at idaho.uli.org/events. Full RSVP and details require the chapter's authenticated portal; the chapter calendar is the source of truth. The Young Leaders Group runs regular development tours - worth getting on their list if you don't have a relationship there yet.
  • Boise Metro Chamber / BYP - Calendar at web.boisechamber.org/events (member session required to load detail). Business After Hours remains the monthly anchor.
  • ASHRAE Idaho - Next event is the May 29 golf lesson; full schedule via idahoashrae.starchapter.com/calendar.php.
  • Boise Leaders Networking Group - Weekly noon luncheon. boisenetworking.com
  • Network After Work Boise - meetup.com/network-after-work-boise

🤖AI Brief

The defining moment of the week: OpenAI confidentially filed its S-1 IPO prospectus Friday, May 22, targeting an $852B–$1T valuation with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading and a possible September public debut. Anthropic is reportedly projecting ~$10.9B in Q2 2026 revenue (up 130% from $4.8B in Q1) along with its first-ever quarterly operating profit (~$559M), driven by compute costs falling from 71¢ to 56¢ per revenue dollar and the number of $1M+/year enterprise customers doubling past 1,000. The frontier-lab business model is no longer a private bet - both leading labs are about to be valued by public markets, and the unit economics are finally showing up in print.

Subtext worth carrying into the next quarter: the US frontier lead is narrowing. Anthropic itself is publicly characterizing its edge as "several months" over leading Chinese models, and OpenRouter data shows Chinese model usage (DeepSeek, Kimi, Zhipu GLM) jumped from ~1% of developer traffic in 2024 to ~60% in May 2026 - driven primarily by 9x cost advantages. Developer choices today become enterprise standards in 12–18 months. If a client is making any 2027 vendor commitments, the cost-per-token gap is now a serious procurement variable, not a curiosity.

🔧Tools & Models

  • Anthropic Claude Managed Agents - sandbox + MCP tunnels (announced May 19). Managed Agents can now run in a customer-controlled sandbox and reach private MCP servers via a tunnel that keeps those services off the public internet. This is the enterprise-security story that was missing from the original Managed Agents launch - relevant for any client in financial services, healthcare, or any regulated context where "the agent has to reach our internal systems but cannot expose them" was the blocker.
  • Google Antigravity 2.0 - standalone desktop app (macOS, Linux, Windows). Replaces the IDE-bound Agent Manager with a fully agent-optimized workspace powered by current Gemini models. New: dynamic subagents, asynchronous task management, JSON hooks, cron-scheduled tasks, and slash commands like /goal and /grill-me. Available to enterprises with a CLI, SDK, and API alongside. This is Google's most direct shot yet at the Claude Code / Cursor / Windsurf workflow.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash - Google's distribution-first play. Benchmarks lead Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5 on coding and agentic tasks, trail on long-context and knowledge depth. Priced between Flash-Lite and Sonnet tier. The strategic point: Google chose to ship cheap-and-fast across Search AI Mode, Ask YouTube, and Universal Cart rather than chase headline-grabbing benchmark numbers. If a client is building consumer-facing AI features at scale, Gemini Flash's economics are increasingly hard to ignore.
  • Claude Code mid-May reliability pass. Better background session handling, faster MCP/SDK startup, improved model and plugin management, and a long list of terminal-glitch / crash / session-recovery fixes across desktop and Windows. No new headline features - just the kind of release that quietly raises the floor for teams already in production.

📈Business & Market

  • OpenAI S-1 filing - Friday, May 22. Target $852B–$1T valuation, Goldman Sachs + Morgan Stanley, possible Q4 2026 (September) listing. Context: OpenAI reportedly generated ~$13.1B in 2025 revenue against ~$22B in costs, with internal projections of a $14B operating loss in 2026 - the public-markets question is whether revenue growth outpaces the burn.
  • Anthropic - projected Q2 2026 revenue ~$10.9B, ~$559M operating profit. Compute cost down to 56¢ per revenue dollar from 71¢; $1M+/year enterprise customers past 1,000. Q4 2026 IPO window still expected at a current ~$900B valuation reference point.
  • SpaceX IPO prospectus surfaced - $1.75T valuation target, June listing, ticker SPCX. Q1 2026 SpaceX: $4.69B revenue, $4.28B net loss; Starlink at 10.3M subs and $1.19B operating profit on a standalone basis. Tangential to professional services work, but the IPO-window crowding (SpaceX June, OpenAI September, Anthropic October) is going to dominate enterprise procurement conversations for the rest of the year.
  • Q1 2026 venture funding hit $300B; AI captured ~80% of it. Four of the five largest venture rounds ever recorded closed in Q1: OpenAI $122B, Anthropic $30B, xAI $20B, Waymo $16B. Q1 startup M&A exits totaled $56.6B - third-highest quarter since 2022.
  • White House AI executive order postponed. The voluntary 90-day pre-launch review framework was delayed over internal disagreement on enforcement mechanics. No new signing date. Means federal pre-deployment review is still informal-only for the moment.

💡Worth Knowing

  • Anthropic credit-metering for third-party agent harnesses - 23 days out (June 15). Reminder from last week: Pro $20/mo, Max 5x $100/mo, Max 20x $200/mo in credits for outside-Claude usage; inside Claude (Code, Desktop, web) is unchanged. If you're running anything in production on an outside harness against a Pro/Max plan, this is the week to model the credit cap or move to API billing.
  • Claude 4 API deprecation - 23 days out (June 15). Sonnet 4 and Opus 4 retire from the API. Audit any pinned model IDs in production. Opus 4.7 is the upgrade path; tokenization may shift token counts up to ~35%, so budget for the change.
  • The cost-per-token gap is becoming a procurement variable. Chinese models running at ~9x cost advantage on equivalent benchmark workloads, with OpenRouter usage already at 60% of developer traffic, means the "use the best model, cost will sort itself out" era is closing. For any 2027 AI line items, build a tiered architecture into the recommendation: frontier model for high-stakes tasks, lower-cost model for the routine 80%. Clients who don't will end up overpaying by a wide margin.

🔗Worth Reading

Generated on Saturday, May 23, 2026

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