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20 by ‘15
October, 2009
Video: Michael Brooks is Chief Executive Officer of the Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac).
By Barbara Carss
An ambitious new goal for energy savings in Canadian office buildings is projected to reduce electricity demand by approximately 1,500 megawatts across the country. The Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac), the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Canada and the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) have jointly endorsed 20 by ‘15 – a campaign to reduce annual energy consumption to a maximum of 20 equivalent kilowatt-hours (ekWh) per rentable square foot by 2015.
Recent CaGBC benchmarking data pegs the current average usage at closer to 38.5 ekWh/ft2 based on the median performance of 64 commercial office buildings participating in the pilot project to inform the LEED Canada rating system for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (EB:OM). However, target setters maintain that there are many relatively low-cost saving opportunities to be found and either LEED EB:OM or BOMA Canada’s BOMA BESt performance assessment and benchmarking program could guide building managers and operators to the possibilities.
Proponents have chosen the target as a clear and consistent alternative to the many existing programs that express goals for conservation and/or emissions reductions as a percentage of energy use and/or carbon output in base years ranging from the 1990s to present day. In contrast, 20 by ‘15 enables standardized measurement and a common point of comparison for all participants.
“Any engineer can compute it. Any owner can understand it,” asserts Michael Brooks, REALpac’s Chief Executive Officer.
Program partners have outlined a strategy for reaching the 20 by ‘15 goal that relies as much on management practices, occupant behaviour and lower-cost operational adjustments as on capital investment in retrofits.
“Benchmarking is where you begin,” advises Ian Jarvis, President of Enerlife Consulting, which oversaw the LEED EB:OM pilot project for the CaGBC. “Don’t even think about capital projects until you get your organization working well.”
He calls on the real estate sector to master the valuable and easily accessible information that utility bills and metering data provide. Once property managers understand what load profiles should look like under different conditions and different times of the day, they can see patterns of usage that might be adjusted or anomalies that warrant further exploration. They should also have more confidence when talking to their tenants.
“You have to partner with your tenants; you have to engage them,” Jarvis says. “Sustainability is great common ground for you all to get together.”
Notably, audits and benchmarking frequently spur new behaviours simply by highlighting energy consumption levels and a building’s performance in comparison to others. “Transparency of performance saves energy all on its own,” he argues.
Beyond that, he separates energy management improvements into three categories of activity: operational improvements, recommissioning and retrofits. Each represents an escalating level of investment, but, in all cases, preparatory work should determine the best option and an expected payback to justify the business case.
Details from CaGBC’s benchmarking database show that the least efficient commercial buildings are using 2.5 times as much energy as those at the top of the rankings. However, analysts maintain that both the best and worst performers demonstrate that the target should be attainable.
The least efficient buildings consuming around 65 ekWh/ft2 present plenty of avenues for action. Meanwhile, detailed energy audits reveal that the 10 most energy-efficient buildings in the sample still exhibited excess consumption in at least one of seven key building systems (lighting, ventilation, heating, air conditioning, office equipment, building envelope and water fixtures) despite overall energy use near or below 20 ekWh/ft2.
“We have not found one commercial building that has lined up all the pieces of the puzzle. Even the top-performing buildings – and a number of them are at 20 now – have room to improve,” Jarvis reports.
Program partners are ready for the challenge.
“It is critical to the success of this initiative that these three organizations support the target,” Brooks says. “We want our real estate companies to be among the most sustainable companies in the world and we have some catching up to do.”
Additional coverage of the 20 by ’15 campaign launch can be found in the October 2009 issue of Canadian Property Management.
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