Establishing Building Recommissioning Priorities and Potential Energy Savings from Utility Energy Data

An energy reduction program for commercial buildings is implemented for a SW Ohio natural gas utility. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that historical utility data for individual building customers, along with knowledge of pertinent building information (square footage, year built, number of floors, height of floors, wall construction type, and use type) available in county auditor databases, could be used to identify the best candidate buildings for recommissioning in terms of energy savings and simple payback. A study is completed for all natural gas customers of a utility in Montgomery and Clinton counties in Ohio. A total of 400 candidate buildings for recommissioning are identified. These buildings (1) have seen increases in heating or non-weather-dependent energy over time or (2) have large baseline energy intensities indicative of combined heating/cooling year round. For these buildings, individual energy reports are created and shared with the building owners. For a subset of buildings, on-site recommissioning evaluations were used to confirm estimates derived from utility data alone