[Bldg-sim] In search of nationwide (US) energy benchmarking data

Fri Apr 14 15:40:23 PDT 2017

Hello BLDG-Sim users,
Dominique Michaud here. I work as a sales analyst for a small HVAC technology company called Encycle. I am trying to run some market research to help direct my sales team to target certain building types in specify climate zones based on the highest opportunity for energy and demand savings. To this end, I’ve been hunting (for some time now) for nationwide, comprehensive commercial building benchmark data that covers energy use, peak demand and utility spend by end use, building type and by region (ZIP and/or climate zone). Ideally the dataset would be comprehensive, but I’m willing to sew together the dataset I need by cobbling together data from different sources.

Specifically, I’m looking for any (and all) of the followingdata points:

-         Energyuse intensities (kWh/ft2-year) by end use (lighting, heating, cooling,ventilation, plug loads, etc.), as well as the corresponding whole buildingenergy use intensities, by building type and climate zone. 

-         Peakdemand data (W/ft2) by end use (lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, plugloads, etc.), as well as the corresponding whole building peak demand, bybuilding type and climate zone.

-         Energyexpenditures ($/ft2) by fuel source (electric, gas, other), by building typeand climate zone.

-         Typicalutility rates ($/kWh, $/kW), by building type and climate zone, or just bystate/ZIP/region.

-         Aggregationof any (or all the above) on a monthly level would be even better.-          The energy use and demand data could either be from calibrated building energy simulations, or from energy survey data. 
Years ago I worked on the California Commercial End-Use Survey (CACEUS) project for the California Energy Commission. This report covers muchof the data that I’m looking for and it’s in a structure I need it to be in - by building type, site energy in kWh/ft2 for electricity and kBtu/ft2 for gas, and not source energy in kBtu/ft2 as is reported by EnergyStar/EPA. CA CEUS would be of great use to me, however, it only encapsulates the California commercial building stock, it doesn't have energy cost data, and thesurvey is now quite stale (circa 2003). 

Generally speaking, the data I’m looking for could be available from a few sources that I've found, but none of them are available in a raw format that I would need in order to re-aggregate for my purposes:1) The EPA through the Energy Star Portfolio Manager benchmarking program. They’veaggregated and reported out their data through their PortfolioManager DataTrends reports, though for my purposes I would need to able to accessthe raw data to conduct my own aggregation to suit my needs. I've reached out to the EPA through their online "Contact Us" form to see if it's possible to obtain the raw data, but I'm not expecting a response anytime soon.2) It looks as thoughthere’s been a fair amount of collaboration between Building Owners and ManagersAssociation International (BOMA) and EnergyStar on the above energy benchmarking effort. I’ve also reached out to BOMAwith the same data request in the hopes that the likelihood of obtaining the data are higher if it's available for purchase.

3) DOE Buildings Energy Data Book - This study seems to have much of the data I'm looking for, however, the data are already aggregated, summarized and formatted in Excel worksheets. Is there a way to access the raw data/summary reports without having to download and re-run all of the EnergyPlus simulations?
4) CBECS - similar to CEUS, but the data summarized only at the annual level, and does not include aggregation of end use intensities by climate zone AND building type. Also, energy use is for source energy, not site energy.
I've reached out to several big energy data service companies Ecova, Urjanet and RateAcuity in the hopes that they might be able to put together a dataset of utility rates searchable by business type, size and ZIP code, but so far I haven't had any useful responses. Urjanet informed me that they are working on such a product, but that it is not yet complete and there's no timetable for when it could be available.
Can anyone point me in a direction that would help me track down any of the above data? And if you're interested in whatever turns up, let me know and I can report back my findings.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email and in advance for any help you might be able to provide. 

Yours respectfully,Dominique Michaud, PE | Senior Sales Analyst | Encycle | www.encycle.com 1850 Diamond Street, Suite 105 | San Marcos, CA 92078 1 760 481 7878, ext. 7871 (O)

Namely:
The work that I do on the sales side of our business involves pre-qualifying candidate sites based on their utility rates. We prefer to target our sales efforts on candidate businesses located in regions with high demand and energy rates. We know that California has both, and parts of the North East also tend to have high utility rates, but we’re often in the dark on what the utility rates are like elsewhere in the country. And even in the North East, adjacent utility service territories might have significantly different rates.  Because our technology tends to offer more in the way of demand savings versus energy savings, we need to know both the demand and the energy (commodity) rates before evaluating a facility’s feasibility. Blended energy rates are easy to come by (EIA comes to mind), but we need the rates segregated by demand and energy to be useful for our purposes. We’ve been using another data service (RateAcuity) to help us look up utility rates by Zip Code, however their database is incomplete and often cumbersome to use (each lookup is executed one by one). And because utility companies are not bound by Zip Codes, there is often a many-to-one relationship between utility schedules and a Zip Code.
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