Comparing your energy usage—”How green are your facilities?”

Many Facilities Managers and Real Estate executives are questioned about their facilities’ energy footprint. Sometimes it is just an offhand comment by a CEO or Board member, “How green are our facilities?” Sometimes those questions can result in a major study and when the results are developed, no one even remembers having asked the question. But there is an easy way to answer this question by comparing your energy utilization (footprint) with your peer group.

By comparing with a good peer group, you will be able to see if you’re doing just fine, or maybe you need to invest in some energy savings projects to reduce consumption. Direct comparisons with a valid peer group would be very valuable and appropriate in making the correct decisions.

Many organizations are looking for benchmarking data to compare how their organizations are managing their energy consumption. One of the most common problems is having enough time to collect and input data for a benchmarking survey. What is really needed is a table or chart showing the key utility costs or consumption metrics of a good peer group to compare with their performance. There are some tools available to answer these questions. Let’s look at some of the options.

Let’s start with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for energy utilization. In North America energy intensity is compared on a gross square foot basis. Since, for most buildings, the electricity usage is a major component we usually look at electric energy intensity: KWH (Kilo-watt Hours) per Gross Square Foot. If you are someplace other than the North America you would normally look at the same data but in square meters: KWH (Kilo-watt Hours) per Gross Square Meter. But what is a good intensity rate? If you are purchasing a water heater you can compare labels and see projected energy usage; e.g. 650 KWH per year or 800 KWH per year. From that information you can make intelligent purchasing decisions for a water heater. Buildings can be compared in a similar manner; you just need to know how to develop a label that shows annual kilowatt hours (KWH)/area.

Comparing your energy consumption may give you the wrong perspective on your performance unless the comparisons are made with a relevant peer group.

We will use FM BENCHMARKING LITE to create a chart to show the KWH/area of a good peer group. Here, for example, is a chart showing the KWH/area for office facilities.

Figure 1 — KWH usage per GSF Provided courtesy of FM BENCHMARKING
Filter: Type of facility: Office

This allows you to see at a glance how well your facilities are utilizing electricity compared to other office buildings. There are 318 buildings in this peer group with a median KWH utilization of 24.25 KWH/GSF (red horizontal line) and a first quartile performance of 16.7 KWH/GSF. By looking at and comparing similar types of facilities, you will be able to make intelligent “data driven” decisions. The Facility Director, for this example, has totaled his annual KWH consumption and divided by the GSF to determine the annual usage of 20.8 KWH/GSF, which is near the middle of the second quartile (shown in blue).

But we also know there is a significant corporate initiative to reduce energy consumption to show, for example, that the company is doing everything it can to reduce its “carbon footprint.” The CEO wants to know what could be done to achieve first quartile performance. Since our facility is located in a hot, dry, desert climate, it would be critical to know what 1st quartile performance looks like for our climate zone. Well, that’s easy to do, if we turn on the “Climate Type” filter and see.

There are 25 office buildings in this climate sample so it is enough for a valid comparison.

Figure 2 — KWH usage per GSF Provided courtesy of FM BENCHMARKING
Filters: Type of facility (Office), Geographic Location (Hot-Dry)

The above chart shows a lower median KWH/GSF (20.72 KWH/GSF compared with 24.25 KWH/GSF for office buildings in all climates). From this data it appears that climate, or perhaps the impact of higher electric rates in desert regions, may have some significant impact on electric consumption since our median is 17% lower. It will be a little tougher to achieve 1st quartile performance of 16.3 KWH/GSF with our “Office, Hot-Dry” peer group.

We’ve developed our energy performance comparisons and can now report back to Senior Management what the 1st quartile performance is for our type of building and our climate zone. This wasn’t a major project and it didn’t take more than 20 minutes to develop a good analysis. It looks like we need to reduce our consumption by about 22% to achieve a 1st quartile performance. How difficult or easy that will be, depends upon what systems and controls are already in place, but at least we know what the goal is. Our facilities management team really needs to take a look at what energy conservation projects would make sense to implement to achieve the goal.

FM BENCHMARKING LITE is an example of a good tool to see where you stand in a very quick and easy manner. If your facility performance is in the third or fourth quartile you may need to investigate and benchmark further to determine the next steps to take. By benchmarking Best Practices, you will see what is being done by others in your peer group in buildings that are outperforming yours.

Articles are based on data from FM BENCHMARKING, which until the pandemic had been the online benchmarking tool for facility managers and CREs. Data tracked by FM BENCHMARKING includes cost and labor data as well as best practices for more than 95% of typical facility costs. For questions about benchmarking, please contact Peter Kimmel on LinkedIn. Peter was one of the principals of FM BENCHMARKING and now is consulting in the industry.