Building owners and managers will soon need to prepare for new building energy benchmarking ordinances that are sweeping the nation. Building energy benchmarking ordinances, enacted in Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Washington State, California and Washington D.C. will be coming your way soon.
In Chicago, commercial, residential, and municipal buildings measuring more than 50,000 square feet will be required to participate. These 3,500 large buildings are only 1% of all Chicago’s building inventory, but due to their size, they consume 22% of all energy used by our buildings. So this group is a great place to start.
Benchmarking is a process involving measuring a building’s energy consumption and publishing the information alongside results from similar buildings for comparison, motivation and competition.
The EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager is the online platform used for reporting data about building energy consumption. It assigns an Energy Star score to the property. The Energy Star score ranges from 1-100 and adjusts for climate and business activity. This can be tracked and improved upon over time.
Since data collection on 35,000 U.S. buildings began in 2008, the participating buildings have reduced weather-normalized building energy use an average of 7% over a three year period. Apparently knowledge about power is powerful!
Once energy usage is reported and the Energy Score is assigned, buildings will quickly become motivated to improve, both for better market position as well as for reduced cost.
Schedule for Chicago Building Energy Benchmarking
Nonresidential buildings over 250,000 sf will first report in June 2014
Nonresidential buildings between 50,000 sf and 250,000 sf will first report in June 2015
Residential buildings over 250,000 sf will first report in June 2015
Residential buildings between 50,000 sf and 250,000 sf will first report in June 2016
Public reporting of the data will occur one year after the first reporting date
Best Building Energy Retrofits
Building energy retrofits fall into categories of conventional energy retrofits and deep energy retrofits. Conventional energy retrofits tend to be limited to simple and fast systems upgrades, such as new light bulbs or HVAC controls.
Deep energy retrofits take a whole-building approach, involving the building envelope and multiple building systems, and can achieve more significant energy savings.
A deep energy retrofit involves careful management of the building envelope, including wall and window insulation, air infiltration, indoor air quality, moisture, solar heat gain and solar shading.
As is immediately obvious, deep energy retrofits involve quantum, permanent improvements in the property. Done well, deep energy retrofits can boost a building’s value, market position, occupancy and profitability in a way little else can.
Deep energy retrofits tend to be big, expensive projects, and this can deter action that can be very much needed. But there is a way to achieve a maximized deep energy retrofit with the cost, energy payback and minimal disruption of a conventional retrofit.
I am excited about a little-known approach for window or curtainwall retrofit that can create dramatic improvements in building performance at a far lower cost with no down-time, showing energy paybacks in as little as only five years!
Continue this article here:
Building Energy Benchmarking and Window/Curtainwall Retrofit Part 2
Related articles and resources
Chicago can unleash economic benefits of energy efficiency: Here’s how
Chicago Joins Better Buildings Initiative
USDOE Better Buildings Challenge
BOMA Opposes Mandatory Energy Benchmarking Disclosure in Chicago
BOMA: Top 10 Efficiency Tactics for Commercial Buildings
EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager Quick Start Guide
Energy Efficient Buildings Hub
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