Tools and Resources

The energy used in commercial buildings accounts for roughly one quarter of worldwide emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHG) linked to global climate change, making buildings an important part of your GHG inventory. In order to help you assess the emissions footprint associated with your energy consumption, Portfolio Manager incorporates a number of metrics to quantify these emissions and provide you with an understanding of how they are generated.

Commercial buildings all use different mixes of energy including electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, district steam, and many others. In order to evaluate energy performance for these buildings, we have to express all of these different energy types in a single common unit. Source energy is the most equitable unit of evaluation, and enables a complete assessment of energy efficiency.

For consistency and comparability, all energy performance metrics in Portfolio Manager reports are expressed in either thousand British thermal units (kBtu) or billion joules (GJ) and are annualized to 12 calendar months. However, in most cases your energy bills are not presented in these units and are not tied to calendar months. Therefore, a series of procedures is applied to make these conversions.

Portfolio Manager offers three main meter types, based on the most common ways buildings receive energy:

When you benchmark your building in Portfolio Manager, one of the key metrics you’ll see is energy use intensity, or EUI. Essentially, the EUI expresses a building’s energy use as a function of its size or other characteristics.

For most property types in Portfolio Manager, the EUI is expressed as energy per square foot per year. It’s calculated by dividing the total energy consumed by the building in one year (measured in kBtu or GJ) by the total gross floor area of the building.

This is a sample ENERGY STAR Data Verification Checklist, available through Portfolio Manager (on the Reports tab). While not intended for use when applying for ENERGY STAR certification, this Checklist can help you determine whether or not your building is eligible. The Checklist contains the same sections as the real application for certification, including an overview of the overall property, the property use details, and energy consumption.

This is a sample ENERGY STAR Progress and Goals Report, available through Portfolio Manager (on the Reports tab). Create your own Progress and Goals Report to review your building’s energy use (baseline and current) and compare your actual energy use against your target and the national median. This report may be needed when applying for a grant or responding to a competition.

This is a sample ENERGY STAR Scorecard, available through Portfolio Manager (on the Reports tab). Create your own one-page Scorecard for a visual representation of your building’s 1-100 ENERGY STAR score. Hang the Scorecard in your building’s lobby for public disclosure purposes.

This is a sample Statement of Energy Design Intent (SEDI), available through Portfolio Manager. The SEDI is used for applying for Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR.  The SEDI is available from the Design tab in Portfolio Manager, as well as EPA’s Target Finder.