You have done some HVAC and lighting retrofits on your municipal buildings. Perhaps you have even done some training of your City or County employees towards reducing their energy consumption. You estimate you will be saving 100,000 kWh of electricity per year (that sounds like a lot!). This must mean that your building is now officially a high performance, energy efficient paragon, right? Not necessarily. However there is a simple way to answer this question: benchmark your retrofitted buildings using EPA’s Portfolio Manager tool.
Portfolio Manager is a free online tool, provided by the U.S. EPA, which allows you to track your energy usage over time. For the 14 eligible space types (click here for a list of eligible space types), the tool can provide you with a 1-100 Energy Performance Score. This score ranks your building among similar buildings around the country, factoring in variables such as local weather and occupancy uses. If you receive a score of 50, that means that 50 percent of buildings are performing worse than your building. If you receive a score of 75, you will know that your building outperforms 75 percent of buildings in the US. With a score of 75 or higher your building is eligible to apply for the ENERGY STAR plaque and can be certified as an ENERGY STAR building – showing that your retrofit activities have indeed created a cutting edge, high performance building from what may have been an aging facility. [For ineligible building types, you are still able to receive a weather-normalized energy intensity rating in “kBTU per sq ft per year.”]
Some utilities have begun to offer Automated Benchmarking Services (ABS). This is a service where your utility company automatically inputs your energy use data, making the benchmarking process that much easier. Inquire with your local utility to find out if they are currently offering this service.
As grantees think about ways to continue their efforts for energy efficiency beyond the timeline of the Recovery Act, benchmarking a municipality’s buildings is a great foundation for targeted retrofits and a comprehensive energy efficiency and conservation strategy. The benchmarking of buildings retrofit with Recovery Act funds is also a great way to see how effective your projects are and what operational and maintenance due diligence will be necessary to maintain a high level of performance.
If you have questions, comments or stories that you wish to share about benchmarking your buildings or using the Portfolio Manager tool, please comment below.
Content for this blog post courtesy of Aaron Burdick, South West Regional Coordinator, ICF International