Lord Kelvin, the famous British scientist who accurately calculated the temperature of absolute-zero, is credited with the saying, “To measure is to know.” Others cite the old business adage, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” The point is that it is impossible to know how well your building is performing unless you can measure its energy use and compare it against a meaningful baseline.
Energy benchmarking is a common practice, and is required in, two states, one county, and fourteen cities across the United States. Benchmarking can be as simple as comparing this year’s energy bills to last year’s; however, in order to truly understand how your property is operating, you must go further and benchmark more broadly, accounting for fluctuations in weather, the use of your building, which types and how many tenants you have, and other metrics that may influence the energy use of your property.
This section will explain some of the most common energy benchmarking tools, and how you can implement them in your own property to measure your energy use and ultimately decrease the amount of wasted energy in your building.
