Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Portfolio Manager
Overview
EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager is a web-based energy management tool designed to measure, track, and benchmark water and energy consumption (and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions) specifically from an organization's commercial and industrial buildings and facilities. The tool can be used to track energy and water consumption and costs in individual facilities as well as across an organization's entire portfolio of buildings. For certain building types, Portfolio Manager assigns ratings based on national performance data. These ratings can assist in benchmarking energy and water performance and in identify buildings that are underperforming and may present opportunities for improvement. This tool can be used to establish a baseline and track progress over time. It can also be used to set goals for a community's buildings, based on benchmarking data.
Inputs and Outputs
Inputs include: For each facility, the user must specify the building type, location, and age. Distinct spaces within a facility (e.g., office, garage) may also be specified. For each space, attributes such as gross floor area, number of occupants, and operating hours/week must be input. Portfolio Manager also asks for space-specific information such as number of PCs and percent of the space that is conditioned by HVAC equipment. The user creates energy and water "meters" to track consumption (by fuel type for energy consumption) and costs. Water use may be tracked in four categories: indoor use, outdoor use, combined indoor/outdoor use, and wastewater. For some applications, spreadsheet imports are possible to ease resources required for inputting data.
Outputs include:
Portfolio Manager is capable of showing over 70 types of data. The tool automatically calculates a national energy performance rating for certain building types within the user's portfolio of buildings as well as percent energy reduced between the baseline and current reporting periods. Other outputs include current energy performance (total site energy use, site electric and natural gas use, and energy intensity) as well as space and water usage. The energy, financial, and environmental performance can be compared for two different time periods. Outputs may be summarized and exported as a Statement of Energy Performance for a given building, which can be used to apply for ENERGY STAR or for general communication of building performance.
Highlights
For several types of commercial buildings, Portfolio Manager will assign a facility an energy performance rating on a scale of 1-100 relative to similar buildings nationwide. A building or portfolio's rating is determined based on comparing the building's actual energy or water consumption with its expected consumption if it were the best performing, worst performing, or any level in between. Buildings that achieve a certain rating may qualify for ENERGY STAR certification or recognition as leaders. Benchmarks are calculated based on building codes at the time of construction.
Portfolio Manager allows the user the track energy consumption on a monthy (or other user-defined reporting period) basis. The program offers several downloadable Excel templates for data collection that can be used to import facility data into Portfolio Manager. Data can also be entered manually.
Notes
Portfolio Manager is free, but requires registration with the EPA.