Benchmarking: How to stack your building?

David Pospisil, guest blogger, energy efficiency markets

Energy benchmarking can help you to understand your commercial real estate energy consumption and monitor performance in the course of time. It enables comparisons between similar types of buildings and recognize, which could work more efficiently.

Environmental STAR ® program offers protection agency and the ENERGY a free online tool called Portfolio Manager, with the user to track and evaluate, create energy consumption for a single building or a complete portfolio. Portfolio Manager lets users set local energy laws, investment priorities, identify underperforming buildings, verify, get recognition for superior energy efficiency improvements in energy efficiency and EPA.

If you have already gone through the benchmarking process, are you review on the way to improving the energy performance of the building this year? While benchmarking helps you to understand the current state of the building power, an energy audit will help you identify and prioritize opportunities for considerable energy and operating cost savings.

Not all energy audits are however the same. The American Society of heating, refrigerating and air conditioning engineers (ASHRAE) recognizes three levels, which vary in size and costs:

Walk-in rate (level 1): This is the least expensive of the three levels. It offers an analysis of the energy account and may be a journey through the plant. Then, the report describes no-cost and low-cost opportunities.

Energy survey and analysis (level 2): a more detailed analysis, taking into account the owner of operation and maintenance, constraints, and economic factors. The final report may contain capital-intensive energy efficiency opportunities.

Detailed analysis (investment grade audit) (level 3): This analysis provides a higher level of data collection, monitoring and analysis, and focuses on capital-intensive options. The report contains a detailed analysis of costs and savings usually and may contain a timetable for the implementation for each measure.

Analysis work together as an integral steps of energy management plan a company benchmarking and energy. The benchmarking process helps you to identify your building performance evaluation and you can effectively evaluate ways the energy-saving an energy audit, so you can understand where your investment in sustainability will have the greatest impact.

Incentives by the Government and/or utility-based programs may be helping, figures for the cost of an energy audit, as well as energy efficiency upgrades available. For example the Con Edison offers commercial and industrial energy efficiency program:

Payment of up to 50% of the costs, to a maximum of $67,000, for a level 3-energy AuditRebates for high-efficiency electrical and gas equipment, including lights, LED exit signs, water chillers, packaged heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, motors, water and steam boiler performance-based custom incentives for the installation of high-efficiency systems or energy-saving solutions for equipment discounts into consideration
Check which funding are available in your area.

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David Pospisil is a program manager of the Con Edison commercial & industrial energy efficiency program, New York, NY.

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