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Overview
The B3 Energy Benchmarking system provides the ability to manage your existing buildings energy consumption with simple reports using your monthly utility billing information and some basic facility data about your building so you can easily identify which of your building sites are:
- Consuming more or less energy than expected – the Benchmark view
- Consuming more or less energy than in a previous year – the Baseline views
Knowing which building sites use more energy than expected identifies which buildings are cost-effective candidates for energy retro-commissioning or retrofit project. And knowing which buildings are consuming more or less energy than in previous years allows you to know which buildings to focus attention on right away so you can determine what is required to maintain or improve its energy consumption.
Benchmark View - Consuming more or less energy than expected
The Benchmark view allows you to stack rank your portfolio of Sites to show the best building candidates for improvement.
 The Benchmark view is shown by selecting the organization in the tree on the left vertical panel and selecting the View: Benchmarking radio button.
 Missing data for this organization is summarized in the top left panel, showing 1 incomplete building and 3 incomplete meters.
 Actual meter consumption of 130.1 kBtu/SF and a composite benchmark of 122.3 kBtu/SF for completed sites for the entire organization is shown in the top right panel. The amount of energy used by each fuel source used by the entire organization is also shown.
 The lower panel displays the Actual Meter Total and Benchmark Total for each Building Site within the organization. The first site in the list shows a Meter Total of 206.9 kBtu/SF and a Benchmark total of 127.3 kBtu/SF, showing a ratio of actual consumption 162.6% greater than the expected benchmark.
B3 Benchmark consumption predictions are generated by an engineering model of your Building created from your entered Building data. The engineering model predicts the consumption of the building as if it were built to the Minnesota energy code. The more accurate your Building data is, the more accurate the model will be. So it’s important to get your Building data correct.
B3 Benchmarking compares the actual consumption of each building to the consumption predicted by the engineering model. The list of Sites in the Benchmarks view is sorted by the ratio of actual consumption divided by the predicted consumption from the model. Sites at the top of the list may be using more energy than they should. Those sites are great candidates for energy audits.
Benchmarks are used primarily to stack-rank your Building portfolio and identify the Buildings that need attention. Those Buildings will yield the highest return on investment of funds spent on energy performance improvement.
Baseline View - Consuming more or less energy than in a previous year
The Baseline View allows you to stack rank your portfolio of Sites to show which buildings are currently using more or less energy compared to a previous Baseline year. Baselines are used primarily to track savings from improvement projects, or manage the Site’s energy performance on an on-going basis.
With the organization level highlighted in the left panel, select the Views: Baselines radio button. The Baseline year is shown as 2007, to change the baseline year click Edit… and pick another year. This year establishes the “baseline” performance for each Site in the Organization.
The top right panel shows meter consumption of 122.7 kBtu/SF for the most recent 12 months, and 122.3 kBtu/SF for the 2007 Baseline year for all complete Sites within the Organization. The fuel source breakdown as compared to the Baseline year shows current electric consumption is 3.7% over, and natural gas consumption is 1.5% lower.
A stack rank of Building Sites using more or less energy consumption for the current Meter Total as compared to the weather normalized Baseline is displayed in the bottom panel. The first Site is currently using 6.7% more energy while the second Site is using 0.3% less energy than the Baseline.
Reporting View - Visualization
B3 Benchmarking is also able to compare the energy performance of a specific Site or all Sites within an Organization from one year to the next for all fuel sources, in dollars, carbon dioxide emissions, native units, or kBtus. In the Reporting tab, B3 Benchmarking displays many alternative charts and tables to compare current and Baseline consumption metrics. Just click the Show Report Options to select different chart presentations, fuel types and metrics, or years to compare. Below is one example that displays Natural Gas consumption for one Building Site.
This chart displays actual CO2 emissions from natural gas in the solid line as compared to the weather normalized Baseline CO2 emissions from natural gas in the light dashed line. The Baseline year is 2007, so the actual and Baseline emissions are identical.
The table below the chart shows the Actual Total C02 emissions as compared to the Weather Normalized Baseline. For 2008, this Site had an increase of 577 Metric Tons of C02 emissions as compared to the 2007 baseline year, representing a 2% increase in CO2 emissions.
Where possible, B3 Benchmarking also displays the “baseline” as a dashed line, based on the Site’s performance during the baseline year. To calculate the Baseline curve, B3 Benchmarking takes the Sites’ performance during the baseline year and weather normalizes the performance to other years for comparison to actual consumption.
For example, if the baseline year is 2007 and you are viewing 2008 data, B3 Benchmarking will display actual 2008 consumption as a solid line, and the 2007 consumption normalized to 2008 weather as a dashed line. Because B3 Benchmarking has removed weather as a variable, you are able to see the change in energy performance due to non-weather factors such as occupancy, operation, or changes to the building systems or components. If you have improved any of these items, the result will be a reduction in consumption, or “savings.”
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