Mar. 13, 2018

Data CollectionExternal news

Across the U.S., an increasing number of state and local jurisdictions are implementing building performance reporting laws that generate large quantities of useful data on the characteristics and resource consumption of the building stock. However, to realize the potential of these policies, the data must not only be gathered, but put to work to drive energy savings. Under a three-year pilot, Washington, D.C., New York City, and their partners are pioneering the use of data from building performance reporting in energy efficiency programs.

The Putting Data to Work project, led by the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), was developed on the assumptions that the publication of building performance data on government websites does little to drive transformative change in the energy efficiency market on its own, and that the value of the building performance information being collected by many cities nationwide is not yet being fully realized.

Similarities in the nature of the information being collected across cities means that those jurisdictions with newer benchmarking and building performance transparency policies can adopt best practices developed through the District and New York City’s many years of experience working with their policy data. This hands-on experience collected in both jurisdictions provides a guide for identifying efficiency opportunities using city-collected data.

This toolkit and associated resources are crafted to enable other local governments, utilities, and program implementers to learn from the District and New York City’s experiences and replicate their success to maximize energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) savings from their built environments.

For jurisdictions with benchmarking and building performance policies, or those considering adopting them, the hands-on experience collected in the District and New York City provides a guide for using city-collected data to identify ripe efficiency opportunities.

For utilities and energy efficiency service providers, the lessons learned in in the District and New York bring to light ways in which publicly available policy data can assist in better customer targeting, ideally leading to higher participation rates at lower customer acquisition costs.

More information about the project can be found at this link.