Mandatory Energy Benchmarking and Disclosure
California is not the only location requiring benchmarking. New York, Washington D.C. and others are also doing the same.
Washington, D.C. has recently amended their Green Building Act of 2006 to require benchmarking of energy use data using the EPA’s Portfolio Manager as well as disclosure of that information to a public webiste. Their rolling disclosure schedule is based upon size and type of building; largest buildings disclose first, ending with buildings of 50,000 square feet having to post their information by 2013.
New York has a proposed legislation similar to Washington’s. It would require buildings over 50,000 square feet to use Portfolio Manager to enter in electricity and water usage to obtain an efficiency rating. The legislation then mandates disclosure of this information on a yearly basis to the Department of Buildings, beginning July 1, 2010. Following that, on September 1, 2013, building owners would be required to post their ratings on a public website. These measures aid in the transparency of estimating the true cost of renting or owning a particular building.
The following chart, taken from an article written by Naomi Millán (http://www.facilitiesnet.com/energyefficiency/article/States-and-Cities-that-Require-Benchmarking–11023), summarizes some other locations that have implemented benchmarking requirements.
| Borough of West Chester, Pa. |
Borough Ordinance | This ordinance requires new commercial construction to be Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR and benchmarked annually in EPA’s Portfolio Manager. |
| City of Denver, Colo. |
Executive Order 123 | Executive Order 123 requires new construction and major renovations of existing and future city-owned and operated buildings to be Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR and benchmarked in EPA’s Portfolio Manager. |
| State of Michigan |
EO 2005-4, 2005 | Executive Order 2005-4 requires the Department of Management and Budget to establish an energy efficiency savings target for all state buildings managed by the department or another department or agency within the Executive Branch of state government. It requires that all state buildings occupied by state employees be benchmarked using EPA’s Portfolio Manager. |
| State of Ohio | EO 2007-02 | Executive Order 2007-02 establishes that the State of Ohio will use EPA’s Portfolio Manager as the benchmarking tool for state-owned facilities to establish building baselines and measure and track energy use and carbon emissions within the state. |
The EPA’s Porfolio Manager is not the only benchmarking system around. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has a system called the Building Energy Quotient which is currently in its pilot phase. It rates buildings based on a building’s actual consumption of energy and how the building is designed to use energy. This is an asset-based system rather than an operation-based system like Portfolio Manager (although Portfolio Manager does include some asset-specific calcualtions). ASHRAE hopes to get Building Energy Quotient into the market soon.
Partner Energy performs building energy audits and energy rating calculations at a competitive rate. Call Tony Liou at 888-826-1216 or email at tliou@ptrenergy.com.