Thursday, December 6, 2012

Industry Update

Energy Star Updates:
In 2013, Assembly Bill 1103 will require the Owners of non-residential buildings sized 25,000 sf or more to benchmark their building’s energy use prior to any whole-building financial transaction such as leasing, selling, or re-financing. Then, in 2014, this requirement will apply to buildings sized 10,000 sf or more.

Williams + Paddon uses Energy Star Portfolio Manager—a free, web-based program—to assist an Owner in qualifying their buildings for the Energy Star program. Portfolio Manager uses actual utility information to compare a building’s energy use to similar buildings in the same geographic area, and is used in the LEED for Existing Buildings rating system to determine the building’s eligibility for Energy Star. In addition to tracking energy performance, Portfolio Manager has other capabilities, such as determining GHG emissions and tracking water use, REC purchases and their offsets. It is an excellent, user-friendly tool that can help Owners become more informed about their building’s energy performance and perhaps take steps to reduce energy use, and thus, operating expenses. 
 
Energy Star recently completed a collection of reports from the information from Portfolio Manager that reveals trends for energy use benchmarking, and energy use in office, retail, hotel, schools (k-12) and water. Additionally, there is a 14-page summary snapshot of many different factors. For more information on these data trend reports or on Energy Star Portfolio Manager, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Regina Souchek, AIA, LEED® AP, who is one of W+P’s resident sustainability experts.
 
 
 
 
 

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