City of Chicago

The City of Chicago is a leading city for accelerating and promoting energy efficiency strategies through local programs and policies. Energy efficiency is a key strategy to help Chicago reach its carbon reduction goals, and the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance requires commercial, industrial, and residential buildings more than 50,000 square feet to track and report whole-building energy use. The City of Chicago is receiving ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year recognition for leveraging ENERGY STAR tools and resources, including integration of EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® as a critical tool and vital program component. Key 2016 accomplishments include:

• Partnering with multiple organizations to create the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Working Group, including the U.S. Green Building Council – Illinois and the City Energy project, to provide over 40 training sessions on Portfolio Manager.
• Increasing enrollment in the number of customers obtaining data from utilities from 300 buildings to more than 3,300 buildings between 2014 and 2016.
• Generating approximately $11.6 million in energy costs/year and 188,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents annually in energy savings across buildings that benchmarked consecutively for three years.
• Facilitating more than 10,000 support interactions through the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Help Center.
• Assisting more than 100 properties, on a pro bono basis, with benchmarking and data verification.
• Supporting 15 properties in the National Building Competition: BOOTCAMP, including two properties also participating in the Retrofit Chicago Energy Challenge.