Most companies don’t realize how their facility compares in terms of energy usage and efficiency because they don’t have key information about how their building is performing.
In order to determine a building’s energy efficiency, it is necessary to accurately assess its performance. Energy benchmarking provides an effective way to evaluate the energy consumption of a building to help identify potential energy cost savings opportunities.
Data loggers are important diagnostic tools that provide base-line energy measurements. Data loggers can be used to monitor a building’s energy performance which may include monitoring major energy-consuming equipment such as compressed air systems, boilers, hot water systems, chilled water systems, air handling units, indoor and outdoor temperature and electrical usage.
There are several factors to consider when benchmarking a facility, including:
- Identify benchmark goals: Determine the scale and objectives of the benchmarking project. Do you want to verify a facility’s base-line performance or perhaps identify operational and maintenance issues?
- Obtain documentation: Gather information about the facility. Utility bills offer history on the energy usage and cost associated with its existing performance. Other important documentation can include: floor plans, mechanical equipment schedules, and drawings of the buildings duct work and mechanical systems.
- Design a monitoring plan: Based on the information collected from step two, a monitoring plan can now be created. It is important to determine the monitoring metrics you want to include in the scope of the monitoring plan. Common monitoring variables include temperature, relative humidity, kWh, light on/off, and other HVAC system performance measurements which may include differential pressure gauge pressure and flow.
- Setup monitoring equipment: Note: A trained electrician should install the monitoring equipment in live electrical panels. It is important to select the optimum logging interval for your application. When monitoring transducers outputting pulses (such as kWh transducers for example) a logging interval no shorter than every 5-minute should be used.
- Collect and analyze data: After the data has been collected that was outlined in the monitoring plan, the data can be analyzed to create a details of the facility’s energy consumption. After analyzing the benchmarking results, it is important to identify cost saving opportunities and implement improvements.
Optimizing a building’s performance can improve energy usage and decrease utility costs while providing benefits to the environment. Benchmarking is an important way to accomplish these goals. It can provide information on how a building is currently performing and establish objectives for the future.
Resource Links:
: STEP 2.3: Benchmark http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=assess_performance.benchmark
: U.S. Green Building Council http://www.usgbc.org/Default.aspx
Live data from a HOBO U30 remote monitoring system collecting benchmark data can be seen here. 