Overview

The B3 Benchmarking system provides the ability to manage your existing buildings energy consumption with simple reports using your monthly utility billing information and some basic facility data about your building so you can easily identify which of your building sites are:

1. Consuming more or less energy than expected – the Benchmarks view
2. Consuming more or less energy than in a previous year – the Baselines view
3. Consuming more or less energy than similar buildings nationwide - the ENERGY STAR view
4. Consuming more or less energy than similar buildings in the B3 system - the Peer Comparison view

Knowing which building sites use more energy than expected identifies which buildings are cost-effective candidates for energy retro-commissioning or retrofit project. And knowing which buildings are consuming more or less energy than in previous years allows you to know which buildings to focus attention on right away so you can determine what is required to maintain or improve its energy consumption. 
 

Benchmarks View - Consuming more or less energy than expected

The Benchmark view allows you to stack rank your portfolio of Sites to show the best building candidates for improvement.

 The Benchmark view is shown by selecting the organization in the tree on the left vertical panel and selecting the Benchmarks button.

 Missing data for the organization is summarized in the top left panel. The example below shows this organization has 0 incomplete sites, buildings or meters.

 In the top right panel of the example below, the organization's meter consumption is 102.8 kBtu/SF and they have a composite benchmark of 122.46 kBtu/SF for completed sites. The amount of energy used by each fuel source for the entire organization is also shown.



 The lower panel displays the actual Meter Total and Benchmark Total for each site within the organization. The first site in the list shows a Meter Total of 132.50 kBtu/SF and a Benchmark Total of 125.85 kBtu/SF, showing a ratio of actual consumption 105.28% greater than the expected benchmark.

B3 Benchmark consumption predictions are generated by an engineering model of your building created from the data you enter in the Building Editor. The engineering model predicts the consumption of the building as if it were built to the Minnesota energy code. The more accurate your building data is, the more accurate the model will be. So it’s important to get your building data correct.

B3 Benchmarking compares the actual consumption of each building to the consumption predicted by the engineering model. The list of Sites in the Benchmarks view is sorted by the ratio of actual consumption divided by the predicted consumption from the model. Sites at the top of the list may be using more energy than they should. Those sites are great candidates for energy audits.

Benchmarks are used primarily to stack-rank your building portfolio and identify the buildings that need attention. Those buildings will yield the highest return on investment of funds spent on energy performance improvement.
 

Baselines View - Consuming more or less energy than in a previous year

The Baseline view allows you to stack rank your portfolio of sites to show which buildings are currently using more or less energy compared to a previous Baseline year. Baselines are used primarily to track savings from improvement projects, or manage the site’s energy performance on an on-going basis.

 With the organization level highlighted in the left panel, select the Baselines button. The example below has a baseline year as 2008. This can be changed by clicking Edit and selecting a new year. This year establishes the “Baseline” performance for each site within the organization.

 The top right panel in the example below, shows the organization's meter consumption is 102.8 kBtu/SF for the most recent 12 months, and 123.7 kBtu/SF for the 2008 baseline year for all complete sites within the organization. The fuel source breakdown as compared to the baseline year shows current electric consumption is 4.34% lower and natural gas consumption is 26% lower.

 A stack rank of building sites using more or less energy consumption for the current Meter Total as compared to the weather normalized Baseline is displayed in the bottom panel. In the example below, the first site is currently using 0.78% less energy while the second site is using 0.93% less energy than the Baseline.


 

ENERGY STAR View - Consuming more or less energy than similar buildings nationwide

The ENERGY STAR view allows you to obtain an ENERGY STAR rating for eligible sites.

 With the organization level highlighted in the left panel, select the ENERGY STAR button.

 If a site is eligible, the ENERGY STAR rating will appear here. If the site is ineligible, the red status icon will explain why. In the example below, the City Hall received a rating of 78 while their other sites are ineligible. Hovering over the red status icons explain that these sites contain more than 10% of 'Other' ENERGY STAR space usage.

Reporting View - Visualization

B3 Benchmarking is also able to compare the energy performance of all sites within an organization, or a specific site, from one year to the next for all fuel sources, in dollars, carbon dioxide emissions, native units, or kBtus. In the Reporting tab, B3 Benchmarking displays many alternative charts and tables to compare current and Baseline consumption metrics. Just click the dropdown of report options that defaults to Total Energy Dashboard to select different chart presentations. Once a different chart is selected, the Show Report Options dropdown is available to select different chart types, consumption metrics, or years to display. Below is one example that displays the annual fuel consumption for the organization.
 This chart displays actual CO2 emissions from both electricity and natural gas as red and blue bars as compared to the weather normalized Baseline CO2 emissions in the light dashed line. The baseline year is 2008, so the actual and baseline emissions are identical for that period.

 The table below the chart shows the actual total C02 emissions as compared to the weather normalized baseline. For 2010, the organization had a decrease of 655 metric tons of C02 emissions as compared to the 2008 baseline year, representing a 9% decrease in CO2 emissions.



To calculate the baseline curve, B3 Benchmarking takes the sites’ performance during the baseline year and weather normalizes the performance to other years for comparison to actual consumption. For example, if the baseline year is 2008 and you are viewing 2010 data, B3 Benchmarking will display actual 2010 consumption as a solid line, and the 2008 consumption normalized to 2010 weather as a dashed line. Because B3 Benchmarking has removed weather as a variable, you are able to see the change in energy performance due to non-weather factors such as occupancy, operation, or changes to the building systems or components. If you have improved any of these items, the result will be a reduction in consumption, or “savings.”