Press Releases

Minnesota State Administration and Commerce Departments Announce Major Revision in B3 Benchmarking Technology

For Immediate Release: December 1, 2009

~ Major Revision in B3 Benchmarking Technology ~

St. Paul, MN - The Minnesota State Administration and Commerce Departments today announced a major revision in the B3 Benchmkaring mission and benchmarking technology.

The B3 Benchmarking effort, started in 2002, now contains building and consumption information for more than 5,100 public buildings in Minnesota.

Having succeeded in collecting sufficient information to benchmark public building energy performance, the B3 Benchmarking system has now been updated to provide major functionality for building energy management and change-tracking.

New features include:

Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology, delivered in the browser.
Consumption graphs and tables at the Site level, or rolled up to the Organization level.
Weather normalized Baseline calculations.
Portfolio listing of how each building's current consumption compares to a Baseline year.
Carbon Dioxide reporting at the organization and building level for each fuel source using Climate Registry protocols.
Self-guided assist in identifying data problems.

"We are very pleased with the level of participation of all of the public sectors: State Agencies, Cities, Counties, and Public School districts," says Janet Streff, Manager, State Energy Office, Minnesota Department of Commerce, Office of Energy Security.

"It is our vision that building stakeholders will use B3 Benchmarking to continue to reduce state-wide energy consumption through improved building management on an on-going basis. Measurement and trending tools are essential components of any energy savings plan."

The B3 Benchmarking team will be contacting all existing data owners to receive training on the revised website.

For more information about B3 Benchmarking, please visit www.mnbenchmarking.com, or contact the B3 Benchmarking Team at 952-939-1878.