Energy management is more than saving money—it is about understanding processes and energy patterns on properties, setting realistic goals and monitoring progress, and protecting natural resources while leveraging alternative ones. Adopting a portfolio commitment to energy best practices is one way that portfolios can meet today’s cost-cutting and long-term energy efficiency goals. A formal energy…
Category: Consumption/Demand
Understanding CBECS – A key foundation of the EPA’s Portfolio Manager
About the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) CBECS is a national sample survey that collects information on the stock of U.S. commercial buildings, their energy-related building characteristics, and their energy consumption and expenditures. The CBECS was first conducted in 1979; the tenth, and most recent survey, was fielded starting in April 2013 to provide…
Is Solar Mainstream Enough for Multifamily?
The U.S. solar industry has come a long way in a very short timeframe. After decades of slow but steady growth, the last 2.5 years have brought an explosion of new installations in America — with two-thirds of all total distributed solar installed since just 2011. By 2015, installations will likely double. At only…
Sustainable Outdoor Amenities
Chris Lee recently published an interesting article on outdoor amenities. It has some good tips for creating additional amenities that promote a sense of community in a cost-effective way. Check it out: http://www.propertymanagementinsider.com/3-tips-for-creating-outdoor-living-spaces.html But speaking of cost effectiveness, beyond the upfront capital dollars that Chris has in mind, should property owners also consider the operating…
What is Intelligent Energy Efficiency?
Intelligent efficiency is the term used to describe the capability next-generation automated equipment and networks used in buildings, transportation, and manufacturing that have become adaptive to environmental inputs and self-optimizing in performance. This makes possible levels of performance that could not be achieved as recently as ten years ago. The energy savings that result from…
Are strategies for multifamily energy effciency different than other building types?
What are specific Cost-Effective Energy Savings Measures for Multifamily The approach to selecting energy savings measures is different for multifamily than other building types. Although there are opportunities (depending on the climate zone) to save space-conditioning energy, the shared wall geometry of dwelling units and reduced external surface area in multifamily buildings means that less…
Developing a long term portfolio strategy for investing in energy efficiency
Seven (7) events that trigger energy efficiency upgrades and resulting savings There are many discrete financial and regulatory events that may prompt an owner to upgrade a Multifamily building. However, in general, there are a few specific events in a Multifamily building’s Lifecycle when it is typically more cost effective, convenient and efficient to make savings…
San Francisco Energy Audits – Are you ready?
Learning from History Three major U.S. cities – New York, San Francisco, and Boston – have created energy ordinances that pair benchmarking with energy audits and/or building tune-ups (retro-commissioning) every five to 10 years. We anticipate San Francisco to transition its energy ordinance for Commercial buildings to Multifamily properties in 2014 or 2015. As a result, the…
The “hidden” roadblocks to energy efficiency
Are there other roadblocks to energy efficiency? We have addressed in previous postings the roadblocks that inhibit greater investment in energy efficiency technologies and practices in the Multifamily industry. In addition to these common and well-known barriers (e.g., split incentives, whole building information, initial investment costs and ROI, privacy etc.), there is a class of…
Another roadblock to Energy Management in Multifamily – The availability of “Whole Building” utility data
Benchmarking the energy performance of a property—that is, measuring it and comparing it to similar properties—requires utility data on energy consumption and load over at least 24 contiguous months . Owners and operators of multifamily properties must have access to this utility data for the whole building in order to benchmark it accurately. However, whole-building energy data is…