Energy Star - Commercial Buildings

Energy Star for Commercial Buildings

Energy Star uses Portfolio Manager to benchmark buildings, and Portfolio Manager is a tool that can provide interactive resource management. It can benchmark energy for all types of buildings. About 25% of commercial buildings use Portfolio Manager in the U.S. It is also applied in Canada.

A commercial building can use Portfolio Manager to save in the following ways: Identify the best efficiency building and replicate it to other buildings; Benchmark to target improve efficiency for underperforming buildings; The build-in financial tool can compare the cost of energy efficiency and help make a future decision; It can help monitor the future energy efficiency to prevent snapback; It can generate energy efficiency report for analysis; Energy Star scores over 75 can get Energy Star certificate; Not only benchmark energy, but it also can use for track and measure materials, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste.

When you use Portfolio Manager to help energy efficiency, the most important thing is that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight against climate change.

The success story of the commercial building of Energy Star is the logistic warehouse upgrade by landlord Liberty Property Trust and the tenant CEVA Logistics. Their warehouse rewards an Energy Star score of 93, a total area of 387,500 square feet, and saves energy costs by 16 cents per square foot, with about $200,000 saved every year. Their warehouses are in the top 25% of national wide, energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Warehouse lighting (Picture from Google images with CC licenses)

The big saving is easy, and the lighting takes 30% of total energy usage and 60% of electricity usage in a warehouse. CEVA and Liberty find a supplier to replace sensor high-bay T8 fluorescent lamps. The project’s total cost is $178,000 with an $81,900 utility rebate and the cost payback in 1.6 years with a 63% annual return.

The most important part is a collaboration by both parties to make a good decision. The landlord and tenant make energy-efficient together, save their cost, avoid energy waste, and reduce the building’s environmental impacts.

Here are the links to the post:

https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/benchmark?s=mega

https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/tools-and-resources/liberty-ceva-case-study