Smart Buildings Equal a Wise Use of Energy
Location: Washington, DC
Date: 2013-10-21
Energy use in existing commercial buildings accounts for 17
percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of more than $100
billion per year. But it doesn’t have to. On average, 30 percent of
the energy that these buildings use is wasted through
inefficiencies. Outdated lighting, oversized equipment, and poor
operations are just a few culprits.
President Obama has called for American businesses to cut in half
the amount of energy they waste in their buildings by 2020. The good
news is that over the past two decades, thousands of organizations
have already met—and exceeded that challenge—with help from ENERGY
STAR®. ?
Benchmarking is the first step?
To start eliminating waste, you first need to know how much energy
your buildings use, and whether they are among the best or worst in
the nation. Through ENERGY STAR, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency offers a tool called Portfolio Manager®. ??ENERGY STAR
Portfolio Manager is a free, online energy measurement and tracking
tool. Any kind of building can use the tool. Current users include
well known structures, such as the Empire State Building and Busch
Stadium, as well as the buildings we see in our communities every
day: hospitals, elementary schools, supermarkets, and hotels. In
fact, more than 300,000 commercial buildings nationwide—or 40
percent of U.S. commercial building space—use Portfolio Manager to
assess their energy performance and track improvements. ?
Here’s how it works: After setting up a free, secure account, a
building enters at least 12 months of utility bill data into the
tool (whole-building data from all meters is required), along with
certain relevant building and operating characteristics. From there,
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager calculates nearly 150 metrics on your
building’s energy performance, water efficiency, greenhouse gas
emissions, and more. You can normalize for weather conditions,
compare your building’s performance to the national average, set
goals to improve, and then track your progress each month after
adding the latest set of utility bills. ?
For many building types, Portfolio Manager will also calculate a 1 –
100 ENERGY STAR score, which compares a building’s energy
performance to similar facilities nationwide, while normalizing for
weather, operations, and building characteristics. A score of 50
represents median energy performance. A score of 75 represents
performance better than 75 percent of similar buildings. The ENERGY
STAR score is the only performance-based comparative energy
efficiency metric currently available on the market.
So how can these metrics help to cut energy waste from American’s
existing building stock?
The power of information
Walk into any commercial building and tell me whether it’s wasting
energy. Not sure? What if you looked at the building’s energy bills?
Still not sure? What if I told you that the building earned a 1 –
100 ENERGY STAR score of 17? Now we’re talking. More importantly,
now we’re motivated to do something about it! ?
The more than 300,000 buildings that use ENERGY STAR Portfolio
Manager check in on their performance on a regular basis. Like
stepping on the bathroom scale every morning, this tells them how
they’re doing and whether they’re getting more or less efficient
over time. ?
In fact, in a recent study, EPA found that buildings that
benchmarked their energy use consistently over a three-year period
reduced their energy use by seven percent on average (or 2.4 percent
per year). And those that started out as poorer performers (ENERGY
STAR scores under 50) saved twice as much energy over that
three-year period as those who started out above average.
While we can’t say whether it’s the act of benchmarking that causes
these reductions, it stands to reason that the act of benchmarking
can help keep energy performance top of mind amidst other competing
priorities. In addition, benchmarking can help illuminate a path to
improvement. ?
Bringing problems to light?
The first thing that benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
will reveal is whether certain buildings within a portfolio are
performing differently than others. In cases where the buildings in
question are relatively uniform—for example, a group of fire
stations—this can signal discrepancies in operations, maintenance,
or behavior.?
Comparing a building to its peers nationwide and seeing how it ranks
can bring to light shortcomings that may have otherwise been
overlooked.
Typically, we begin by identifying areas in which a building is
wasting energy—by leaving lights and equipment on outside of normal
operating hours, for example. Perhaps a building contains highly
efficient equipment, but still returns a low ENERGY STAR score. This
may signify problems with equipment sizing, controls, or design. By
addressing issues like operations, maintenance, and behaviors,
buildings can begin to reduce their energy use and chip away at that
nearly one-third of energy that’s being wasted and prepare for
larger investments in efficient equipment. ?
Slow and steady reductions add up?
Of the buildings in our study that reduced their energy use, 90
percent demonstrated annual reductions of less than 10 percent. This
suggests that, among buildings that consistently benchmark their
energy performance, long-term gains in efficiency are achieved
slowly and steadily over time (likely through operations,
maintenance, and behavior change), rather than through infrequent
bouts of large-scale efficiency measures (for example, upgrading
heating or cooling equipment).
If all U.S. buildings followed a similar trend of reducing their
energy use by 2.4 percent per year, we could save more than 18
million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year, and we
could reduce the amount of energy used by buildings by 25 percent by
2020.
Stepping on the scale just got easier?
For buildings interested in benchmarking with ENERGY STAR Portfolio
Manager, there is good news. This year, EPA released a complete
upgrade to the tool, which nows makes it easier than ever to get
data in, get information out, and share and report data with others.
Specifically, users will benefit from: ?
Easy data entry:?
- New data entry wizards to walk you through the process
step-by-step.
- More Excel import options: simple Excel upload for a single meter,
advanced customizable Excel upload for multiple meters.
- Improved alert messages - when you enter data that doesn't match,
or a meter that has a gap in it, you will see alert messages that
call your attention directly to the row with the error.
- Simplified sharing to exchange data via web service - it will be
easier to find a utility or service provider and authorize them to
enter your data automatically. ?
Sharing?
- Ability to search ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager for other users
and form a "connection" like you can on social networking sites.
- Once you're connected, you can share multiple properties at once
and customize the sharing rights.
- The sharing table lets you set access levels for multiple
properties and contacts at the same time. ?
Reporting?
- New graphs and table throughout the tool.
- Graphs can be easily exported as images for use in your
presentations and reports.
- Expanded feature to create a big table with your own selected
metrics and export to Excel.?
Why don't you step on the scale today and start working toward our
national goal to reduce our buildings' energy use over the next six
years? Take a tour of the new ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool at www.energystar.gov/NewPortfolioManager.
You can also learn more about our study of more than 35,000
commercial buildings, along with the financial value of
benchmarking, at
www.energystar.gov/datatrends.
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