Using Building-level Energy Metering to Set Benchmarks for Energy Management

Energy Use Analysis 

Energy costs constitute a majority of operating expenses in commercial buildings. To make significant, lasting efficiency improvements, facility managers need to look beyond simplistic cost-reduction approaches to equipment upgrades. Building-level energy metering lets facility managers better understand the key areas of energy consumption such as lighting, HVAC, hot water, pumps, elevator, IT servers, workstations, and other appliances. Once the characteristics of energy consumption in a building have been determined, you can identify the efficiency opportunities with the biggest ROI.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is an excellent way to assess how well a property is performing and set appropriate efficiency goals. To benchmark a building or a portfolio, facility managers need to determine:

• Total annual energy consumption
• Building use type
• Building square footage
• Climate zone

If facility managers have a large portfolio and enough information for each building, they can use their own portfolios for benchmarking. Otherwise, you can use free databases such as Building Performance Database that provide insights into typical building energy data. Facility managers can use the information about their buildings to normalize the data set and create a benchmark to compare the energy performance of buildings against others, or against real estate market statistics. Usually, this means sub-selecting buildings by use-type and calculating energy consumption on a per square foot and/or per cooling degree day/heating degree day basis. 

Benchmarking can reveal energy inefficiencies in building systems, isolate key contributing factors, and identify the right places to target energy improvement projects, including equipment upgrades and process changes. 

Cost Savings 

Building-level energy metering provides clarity on energy consumption and allows for more accurate billing. The energy meters can be aggregated to provide building-level data on total building energy consumption as well as assess the consumption by individual zones. With tenants being able to clearly visualize their energy consumption patterns and the associated costs, it encourages meaningful behavioral changes that improve efficiency and reduce utility bills.

onPoint's capabilities include:

• Energy demand management: By analyzing the demand curve of a building, onPoint accurately predicts the peak demand times and helps facility managers avoid them to realize significant savings.

• Energy monitoring: onPoint continuously monitors energy consumption and offers insights into real-time and historical load patterns. It can also model and predict energy usage at regular intervals on a 15-minute or hourly basis.

• Energy optimization: onPoint identifies inefficiencies, recommends ways to reduce energy consumption, and tracks progress toward efficiency goals. Additionally, its advanced fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) proactively detects problems that may compromise equipment performance and waste energy.

• Benchmarking: onPoint makes benchmarking easy so you can assess performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

• Automation: onPoint allows you to implement sophisticated efficiency-focused automation strategies based on variables like occupant behavior.