Energy Assessment & Benchmarking

Be sure to correctly identify space usage type.

• Selecting the correct space usage type is an important step in creating a building profile in a B3 account. The space usage type plays a major role when determining if a building is using too much energy. For example, if a middle school was misidentified as a library, it would appear to be performing very poorly, with higher than expected energy consumption. That is because an average library consumes less energy than a similarly sized middle school. The opposite is true if a library was labeled as a middle school. The building would appear to be excelling, with lower than expected energy consumption.
• Many buildings have more than one space usage. B3 allows for the user to select multiple space usages and assign a percentage. If a single building was both a library covering 3,000 square feet and a city hall encompassing 7,000 square feet, the space usage would be 30% city hall, and 70% city hall.
• It is important to read the description for the space usage types, because several building types already contain multiple usages. For example, the high school space usage type includes a cafeteria, gymnasium, and office space, so you would not want to add those space usages to the building editor. However, the high school profile does not include a pool, so you would want to add a pool usage type to the building. The user must calculate the percentages of the multiple space types based on square footage. For example, if the total square footage of high school is 250,000 and the square footage of the pool room is 5,000, the correct space usage description for the building would be: High School 98% and Pool 2%.

Pay extra attention to delivered fuels and billing dates

• B3 allows users to add “meters” for the delivered fuels of propane, fuel oil and wood. These energy sources, however, are often not measure by meters in the traditional sense. Propane and other heating fuels are delivered as needed throughout the heating season, so regular meter reading data is not applicable.
• To keep records of energy consumption of these fuels an organization may take monthly readings of their fuel tank via a gauge or dipstick and use this data similar to natural gas or electric meter readings. This option may be made more difficult in the winter, when fuel tanks may be hard to access.
• Another option is to use the dates of delivery as the start date and the end date of the meter reading. For some buildings, the span between deliveries may be several months and B3 will take the total amount and calculate an average monthly consumption for the meter. This may not provide an accurate measurement of the amount of fuel consumed on a monthly basis, but does a good job at providing a yearly summary of energy consumption as well as a benchmark for the building.

Data Release

If your staff is using outside assistance for collecting billing data from your utility, a data release form may be required. Example data release form.

Access B3 Learning Center

Utilize the resources provided on the B3 website by clicking on Learning Center on the homepage menu. There you will find webinars, a glossary and a FAQ.