Benchmarks for Energy Use
The attached reports present energy use data for buildings that are owned by the Town of Knox. They use a standardized format provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their Energy Star Portfolio Manager program. More information about this program is available at this link: https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager
Definitions: Site Energy is the annual amount of all the energy the property consumes onsite, as reported on utility bills. Use Site Energy to understand how the energy use for an individual property has changed over time. Source Energy is the total amount of raw fuel that is required to operate the property. In addition to what the property consumes on-site, source energy includes losses that take place during generation, transmission, and distribution of the energy, thereby enabling a complete assessment of energy consumption resulting from building operations. For this reason, Source EUI is the best way to quantify the energy performance of commercial buildings. Use it to understand the complete energy impact of your property, and to compare the energy performance of properties across your portfolio. The Town’s properties don’t match well with the building types that EPA uses for comparison with national medians. For example, the transfer station uses a lot of energy in relation to the small floor area of the office, because the trash compactor and the plastics compactor consume a lot of electricity. These reports track energy use for buildings, so other significant energy usage and costs such as gasoline for lawn mowing, electricity for street lights, and diesel and kerosene for highway equipment are not captured. |
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