Readers of our Insights blog may recall that Buildings Alive has been investigating ways to calculate targets for building energy performance.   

In 2017, we announced a new technique we have created to set empirically-based targets, and subsequently included this in our daily feedback service. Preliminary results of calculating and presenting and engaging with targets were reported at the ACEEE Summer Study 2018. 

Just a few days ago in early May 2019, our paper “For building operators, what difference does a target make ?” was published in the leading scientific journal ‘Energy Efficiency’. In this paper, Buildings Alive CEO Craig Roussac and Data Scientist Hao Huang report that:  

  • Prior to implementing daily building electricity targets, energy consumption was around 12% lower than the baseline position when customers and buildings joined our program, and the rate of energy savings growth had slowed in the buildings included in this experiment 
  • After we implemented daily building electricity targets, energy use trends and energy savings growth trends changed markedly for those same buildings (increasing energy use savings by approximately 1% every 16 days!) 

Our conclusion – based on data from 60 buildings and validated by rigorous peer review – is that showing a scientifically-based target that is meaningful and relevant to building operators makes a significant difference in terms of engagement and action.  

As a consequence, we’re including targets as early and as often as we can in our daily feedback for building operators, and using them to inform asset portfolio managers of what a reasonable expectation is in terms of performance goals. 

If you’d like to understand what a meaningful and statistically valid target is for the buildings you own and/or operate, or you’d like to realise the associated 15% in energy use savings every year, we’d be delighted to talk! 

Talk to our team about grid-interactive efficient buildings!