Glossary
Sector
A Sector is a categorization for an organization. There are currently four sectors, all public, in B3 Benchmarking:
- State
- City
- County
- Public Schools
Each organization in B3 Benchmarking belongs to one and only one sector. We may add additional sectors in the future.
Organization
An Organization in B3 Benchmarking is a public entity that has one or more public sites. Sites may belong to one and only one organization.
Site
A Site is a collection of buildings and meters. A site is most often a single physical location or campus. B3 Benchmarks are created at the site level, NOT the building level due to the fact that multi-building sites often share meters, and therefore share consumption data.
Building
A Building in B3 Benchmarking is a physical structure that consumes energy from one or more meters.
Space Usage
Buildings in B3 are described using Space Usages. A Building may have more than one space usage (e.g. 50% Community Center and 50% Office). Each space usage contains data about the occupancy, percent heated, and percent cooled, that can be modified by the user. It is important to enter accurate space usage data. The better the data entered, the more accurate the benchmark.
Meter
A Meter in B3 Benchmarking is a physical meter on a site, usually used for billing. Current meter types are:
- Electric
- Natural Gas
- Chilled Water
- Steam/Hot Water
- Propane
- Fuel Oil
- Wood
Each meter has a collection of meter readings. Users must specify a utility company for each meter to enable carbon calculations.
Meter Readings
A Meter Reading is a measurement of consumption and dollars for a period of time. Most readings will be information entered from a utility bill.
In order to avoid gaps, the start date of each meter reading should be the same as the end date of the previous reading.
Readings do not have to be entered in chronological order. You can enter a new reading for any time period, and re-sort the readings chronologically.
Benchmark
B3 Benchmarking automatically creates an energy Benchmark for each site. The benchmark is a prediction of the site’s consumption based on an engineering model of the buildings and space types, constructed as if each building were built to the current Minnesota Energy Code.
Actual consumption of the site will vary from the benchmark. If the variance is large, you should check all your building and meter reading data.
The Benchmark is designed to be a good screening tool to identify sites that need attention. Sites that use more energy than the benchmark are good candidates for an energy audit.
Baseline
The Baseline is used to compare an organization or site's current consumption to itself using a defined baseline period. You may change the baseline period at any time using the baseline period editor. The Reporting tab displays the current consumption compared to the weather-normalized baseline period.
Weather Normalization removes the variable of weather in the comparison, so you know that a reduction in consumption is due to operation or changes in the building systems, not the weather.
Weather Normalization
Weather Normalization mathematically adjusts the energy consumption figures to factor out any variations outside air temperature may have had allowing for an "apples to apples" comparison of one periods of time's energy consumption to another period of time. Example: you used less energy in 2010 than 2009 so is that savings related to more efficient operations or due to the fact that the winter of 2010 was warmer than 2009 thus you would expect to use less heating energy in 2010. Unlike many programs which use heating and cooling degree days, the B3 Benchmarking system uses an algorithm to determine the nonlinearity relationship between load and temperature thus establishing the appropriate curve and balance point.
Currency
B3 Benchmarking allows the user to see consumption in three different formats, or “currencies:”
- Energy
- Dollars
- Carbon Emissions
Each of these views is valuable in its own way.
Data Owner
A Data Owner is an individual with a B3 Account that is responsible for an organization’s data.
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