It is becoming increasingly clear that buildings are responsible for a significant proportion of GHG emissions in North America, with estimates ranging as high as 40%.
Every asset class (e.g. office, retail, multi-res) has its own reasons for high energy consumption. Within each asset class, each building has unique reasons for high energy consumption.
EPL tracks, monitors, and reports on energy consumption for our portfolio clients across Canada and the US. Collectively, this represents more than 2000 properties and $300M in annual utility costs. In our experience the range of energy performance for similarly-sized buildings, in a given asset class, in a given region, varies by a factor of two to three times.
There are many reasons for this range. Building age, HVAC systems, tenant occupant density/type, tenant load density (e.g. data centres), parking garages heated/not heated, retail, etc. All of these are potentially valid reasons, but they also represent an excuse not to look further.
Consider another building type: one with a lot less variability. EPL calculated energy use intensity for a collection of large retail stores across Canada. Each store is similar, with identical rooftop units, lighting systems, control systems, and operating hours. To remove geographic weather influences, sites were filtered by region. The finding: the buildings in the high usage quartile use twice as much energy as those in the low usage quartile.
The question is – what’s the difference?
At the core, the difference is whether or not the people in the building are motivated and equipped with tools to assist in quantifying and reducing energy consumption.
The reality is that the world tends towards randomness: equipment stops working as designed/intended, schedules are changed following miscellaneous requests, building operations staff changes over time, and other changes lead to a gradual upward creep in energy consumption.
Optimal building operation is elusive, but every effort should be made towards achieving it, and the first step is in understanding where and how energy is used in the building. This means having control over your data.
Reducing energy consumption for most of the past 20 years has been about installing equipment and technology: T8’s, VSDs, high efficiency chillers, control systems, condensing boilers, occupancy sensors, etc.
It is becoming clear that further tangible reductions in energy use intensity will be the result of hard work by intelligent people who are motivated to track down waste and make changes.
