Does this make me look big?
Data coverage is the single most important element of managing energy use
A friend of mine often says, does this make me look big? Appearances can be deceptive and simply looking at something often has the potential to bring with it the bias of the observer. While they honestly aren’t looking for an opinion on their weight, to truly know if they are big, some form of measurement is probably a better gauge then my opinion. Perhaps BMI or simply a scale will provide a much more insightful answer then what I might “think” about their appearance.
So what does this have to do with energy you might be asking? It all boils down to are you measuring your energy consumption, or are you guessing at what it is. The term, data coverage speaks to the availability of data from the assets in the fund and is a key differentiator when comparing GRESB reporting funds. It boils down to transparency, the more data you have available, the better the understanding of the performance of the asset.
To dive deeper into this concept, lets evaluate a single property. The fictional property, Thirty Nine Village will be our representative, a mid-rise, 5 story property located in Anytown, USA. Thirty Nine Village for our purposes has 200 units and is a market rate property. It is part of a REIT fund that reports annually to GRESB. The investors expect a 3% year over year reduction in energy, water and waste and expect to place in the top 10 of similar fund types in each GRESB reporting period.
At Thirty Nine Village, the electrical service tariff requires that multi-family properties to have individually metered connections, with the account being directly billed with each resident. Who can blame them - 201 service fees, 201 meter fees, 201 opportunities to obtain fees for service initiation, etc. (ok rant for a different article) From a data coverage perspective, the manager only has access to the common area meter, unless a unit is vacant and has reverted to the ownership account. If even 10% of units are turning at any given point 90% of the properties electrical usage is unknown to property management.
If we are lucky, this property sits in a mandatory benchmarking territory and the utility must provide whole building aggregate energy data at least annually. Not exactly contemporary, but at least a snap shot and for reporting purposes, sufficient to evaluate year over year performance.
At Thirty Nine Village, the water service tariff allows for master metering and our fictional property uses a RUBS (ratio utility billing) method to bill back residents for water use, which basically spreads the consumption equally for each unit. From a data perspective, since it is master metered, we at least have actionable data that is more timely then only an annual snapshot. The flipside of this arrangement is it may be difficult to understand which unit actually consumed what amount and the lack of definition may mask water leaks which are simply passed on, instead of being identified and addressed. If the example property had been individually metered by the utility, then it would be similar to the electric example and if submetered we would have insight into actual usage which would allow us to identify individual unit consumption and thus address efficiency issues such as leaks.
In this example - we can see that data coverage may be an issue for this property, in that 200 of the electrical accounts we may not be able to obtain data on. This is a very common set up and issue in multi-family housing. It is also going to be an issue if you wish to pursue a green building certification for the property as well.
One starting point is to obtain permission from the utility company from each tenant to access the tenant’s energy information. Energy star provides a universal form to request this information, however many utilities will require you use their specific form. These forms would need to be executed by each tenant and submitted to the utility company for each account. An alternative might be to obtain data releases electronically authorizing the property manager to access the tenant’s utility data online. To be honest, either approach will be a burden on the property attempting to keep up with each tenant, and completing forms for each.
This is where Green Leasing may provide some logistical relief. Those properties with whole building data needs can incorporate the data release into the leasing documents. This simplifies the process as it can be included as part of the standard leasing process, a time when tenants are completing a number of other account set up steps.
The tenant may however be hesitant to provide this information on the grounds of privacy. The reason for obtaining data around the tenant’s consumption habits of energy and water is to identify inefficiencies and even leaks or conditions that could result in the tenant spending money for utilities not necessarily needed in the quantity being used. Being transparent about the purpose of collecting this data should help gain tenant buy in. Make sure the tenant understands that the data is not being collected to take advantage of the tenant. By being specific about what you are collecting and why you are collecting it, you will overcome many of the concerns around this issue.
An alternative approach may be sub-metering, in that a sub-meter could be placed on the consumer side of each utility meter for data gathering purposes - yes this can be done even if your not able to use it for billing. To accomplish this some lease language would likely need to be included covering consent for the data collection. More likely a bigger obstacle in the short term would be the cost of this approach. Where it could make sense is in a scenario where utilities are included in the rent, however as in our scenario, your still facing a utility tariff that prohibits master metering.
Finally there are a number IoT approaches that could provide data, from panel level devices to property service entry devices. While I don’t want to get to far into the weeds on specific devices (at least in this article), one example is Sense. Devices such as Sense (and other similar devices) allow for panel level electric consumption metering at a lower price point then actual submeters. Working with an IoT provider, that data when pulled into a property level dashboard and provide both overall consumption as well as potentially identify maintenance issues that need to be addressed.
Regardless of the approach used to obtain the data, without it, understanding the efficiency of a property and optimizing performance becomes difficult, if not impossible. That old saying, “measure what you manage” surfaces again.
Once you have obtained the data, there are additional considerations that I will cover in future articles, but they include understanding the impact of the data, i.e. what are the financial implications and who does the cost actually belong to. In analyzing the data, what are you comparing it against? How robust is the benchmark data set that your comparing it against. Are you taking into account the impacts of heating degree days in your year over year comparisons? Rate increases? Changes in delivery and service such as the introduction of demand charges? While all of these are important and can impact the quality of the data analysis, none of that analysis can be done if there is no data to analyze.
You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Chris Laughman is the author of the ThirtyNine Blog, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping multifamily properties reduce their energy and water impact as a senior account manager at Bright Power. A full service energy strategy company, Bright Power is a leading provider of energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy management solutions for the real estate industry. We use our Find-Fix-Follow approach to Find the best opportunities across a real estate portfolio, deploy the Fixes on specific assets, and Follow to ensure long term value, always optimizing for your financial and sustainability goals. Contact me at claughman@brightpower.com for more information