ENERGY STAR Score for K-12 Schools (Canada)

The ENERGY STAR  Score for K-12  Schools applies to primary and secondary schools. This does not include college, cégep, or university classroom facilities and laboratories; vocational, technical or trade schools; or preschool or day care buildings.  The objective of the ENERGY STAR score is to provide a fair assessment of the energy performance of a property, relative to its peers, taking into account the climate, weather, and business activities at the property.  A statistical analysis of the peer building population is performed to  identify  the aspects of building activity that are significant drivers of energy use and then to normalize for those factors.  The  result of this analysis is an equation that predicts the energy use of a property based on its experienced  business activities.  The energy use prediction for a building is compared to its actual energy use to yield a 1 to 100 percentile ranking of performance, relative to the national population. 

• Property types. The  ENERGY STAR  score  for  schools applies to primary and secondary schools,  from kindergarten to grade 12. The  score applies to an entire school whether  it is a single building or a campus of buildings. Individual buildings that are part of larger  K-12 campuses cannot receive their own score.   
• Reference data. The analysis for schools in Canada is  based on data from the  Survey on Commercial and Institutional Energy Use (SCIEU), which was commissioned by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and carried out by Statistics Canada. 
• Adjustments for weather and business. The  analysis includes  adjustmentsfor:
  • Building size
  • Gymnasium size
  • Whether it is a  secondary school
  • Number of workers
  • Student seating capacity
  • Hours of operation per week
  • Weather and  climate  (using heating and cooling degree days, retrieved based on postal code)
  • Percent of the building/campus that is heated and cooled 
• Release date. This is the first release of the ENERGY STAR  score for K-12  schools using Canadian data.

This document presents details on the development of the 1-100  ENERGY  STAR score for K-12 school properties.  More information on the overall approach to develop ENERGY STAR scores is covered in our Technical Reference for the ENERGY STAR Score, available at www.energystar.gov/ENERGYSTARScore. The subsequent sections of this  document offer specific details on the development of the ENERGY STAR  score  for  K-12  Schools.

Download more information about the ENERGY STAR Score for K-12 Schools in Canada here.