Tools and Resources
Guide for Recognition of Energy Costs and Energy Performance in Commercial Building
The Institute for Market Transformation has developed a document to offer guidance to appraisers and other real-estate stakeholders on enhanced methods for energy reporting. These methods are based on a variety of technical approaches and cover a range of complexity, cost, and accuracy, but should all provide more reliable information than the sources that appraisers most commonly use today. The methods described here are all established in the fields of building science and energy engineering, and are being broadly implemented already in the commercial building sector in New York and throughout the United States.
"What is meant by ‘energy-efficient equipment or features?"
If you want to confirm that low energy costs presented to you by a building owner are indeed attributable to energy efficiency and not anomalous factors, you can do so by visually inspecting the equipment or features in the subject building. For a "crash course" in identifying such measures, see IMT’s, Fundamentals of Energy-Efficient Measures in Buildings. Please refer to appendix in the Recommendations and Guidelines for Appraisers. The goals of the document are to:
- assist you in understanding the basic categories of energy-efficiency measures in buildings, and the specific sectors in which certain measure types are most important;
- >advise you about how to identify and compare energy-performance levels of specific building materials and components;
- where available, to identify specific information sources with more information on measure types on energy consumption and energy costs.
Normalized Energy Bills for More Accurate Energy Cost Figures
Normalized billing is a process which essentially breaks down a series of energy bills into their component parts so that the extraneous variables can be controlled for, leaving the efficiency performance variables to predict future energy savings.
The ENERGY STAR® "Portfolio Manager" Benchmarking Tool is an online tool that evaluates building energy performance on a 0 to 100 scale using detailed data on a building's physical attributes, operating characteristics, and monthly energy consumption. Buildings that score a 75 or higher and maintain a healthy and productive indoor environment consistent with industry standards are eligible for recognition as an ENERGY STAR Building. The output of the tool, The Statement of Energy Performance, could in itself be used to support the appraisal. Click here to see a sample Statement of Energy Performance.
The Energy Star Building Benchmarking tool is so easy to use that the proactive appraiser, with an increment of additional time, 12 months of utility bills, and a few simple building parameters, could even obtain normalized energy cost figures him or herself.
Other common billing-normalization tools include Utility Manager (from Illinova Energy Partners), Metrix (From SRC Systems), and Faser 2000 (by OmniComp)."
"What if a building owner presents me with a computer simulation of energy use and costs?
A computer simulation is a detailed engineering assessment of a building’s energy performance, based on its built features, location, and other factors. While the appraiser would not be expected to conduct such a simulation, an increasing number of building owners are recognizing the value of conducting such detailed assessments of their building(s) energy performance.
The U.S. Department of Energy maintains a Web site directory of building energy software tools currently in use. If a property owner presents you with the output of an energy simulation tool, you can learn more about the tool here, so that you can then report the energy cost figures in the appraisal with confidence.
www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/tools_directory/
Building Energy Benchmarking Databases
Appraisers often seek information on buildings with comparable characteristics when estimating property value as a whole, and for confirming or arriving at ranges for particular operating expenses. Please refer to the following building benchmarking databases to enhance your appraisals energy-related ‘comps:’
- CBECS, Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey, is a nation wide survey used to estimate end-use consumption in commercial buildings. This tool allows one to define a set of buildings by principal activity, size, vintage, region, climate zone, and fuels, and then view the energy consumption and expenditure estimates in tabular format. Appraisers can actually run this simple tool themselves to obtain comparable energy cost and usage for certain building sectors.
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cbecs/contents.html - ENERGY STAR® "Portfolio Manager" Benchmarking Tool is an online tool that evaluates building energy performance on a 0 to 100 scale using detailed data on a building's physical attributes, operating characteristics, and monthly energy consumption. Buildings that score a 75 or higher and maintain a healthy and productive indoor environment consistent with industry standards are eligible for recognition as an ENERGY STAR Building.
- The LEED Green Building Rating System(tm) is a voluntary, consensus-based, market-driven building rating system based on existing proven technology. It is a program of the US Green Building Council. It evaluates environmental performance from a "whole building" perspective, and is based on accepted energy and environmental principles. LEED(tm) is a self-assessing system designed for rating new and existing commercial, institutional, and high-rise residential buildings. It is a feature-oriented system where credits are earned for satisfying each criteria. Different levels of green building certification are awarded based on the total credits earned. The system is designed to be comprehensive in scope, yet simple in operation.
www.usgbc.org
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