Data access for building performance standards

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• What is data access and why is it important?
• Data access: How to compile and deliver aggregated whole-building data
• Data access: Sample policy language

What is data access and why is it important?

The ability of building owners to easily access aggregated whole-building energy consumption data will be a key factor in the success of benchmarking and transparency requirements and related building performance standards – whether at the provincial, territorial, or municipal level. This is especially important in the context of large, multitenant commercial and/or multi-unit residential building properties, where the building owner or a designated representative such as a property manager, may not be the customer of record for all the utility accounts that comprise a building’s total energy consumption.

Data exchange via ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Web Services (Web Services) is a way for a utility or service provider’s database to interact directly with Portfolio Manager’s database, eliminating the need to manually enter data into the tool. There are many utilities in Canada offering data access solutions (Web Services) in response to benchmarking or BPS policies in their jurisdiction. See the list of Canadian utilities offering Web Services. The number of jurisdictions offering data access solutions is expected to grow as additional utilities begin integrating Portfolio Manager web services in response to newly implemented benchmarking and BPS policies in Canada.

Coordination among federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments is critical when working with utilities to ensure the availability of whole-building energy consumption data. This is particularly important if a province or territory is looking to establish a requirement for utilities to provide data or provide clear guidance on what kinds of energy data are subject to customer data privacy protections.

Provincial and territorial governments can facilitate conversations on the importance of data access to the success of BPS policies and can provide important context for how a municipal government’s policy efforts fit within the broader province- or territory-wide energy decarbonization goals. This can help utilities better understand the importance of data access and may facilitate utility commitments to provide data access in the absence of formal mandates. It can also help remove 2 of the major obstacles to implementing a successful BPS policy and getting utility buy-in to offer data access solutions: customer data privacy, and technical considerations.

• See Guidance for Utilities on Providing Whole-Building Energy Data to Enable Benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager for more information on data access
• NRCan offers guidance and resources to support data access solutions through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager

For more information on data access solutions, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments and utility providers should review How to Compile and Deliver Aggregated Whole-Building Data and a data access sample policy language guide.

Data access: How to compile and deliver aggregated whole-building data

To provide aggregate whole-building data to facilitate benchmarking, utility providers will need to ensure that all energy meters and/or service points measuring consumption can be “rolled up” to a building’s complete and accurate energy usage. This is generally referred to as “meter-to-building mapping.” Few if any utility provider data systems are currently set up to associate meter/account-level data with whole properties, as they are defined in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Therefore, “meter-to-building mapping” may require a combination of data system queries rather than a single lookup. To effectively perform this process, utility providers typically work with the data requestor to:

• Understand the physical location of the property for which energy consumption data is requested
• Identify all the meter/service points within that location
• Confirm the accuracy and completeness of this meter list
• Establish an association in the utility data system between the multiple “real-world” meter/service points and the “virtual” record being used to capture aggregate data
• Maintain accurate meter-to-building mapping over time, to ensure that the aggregate consumption value reflects all the meters that track energy consumption during a given period

One strategy for the utility provider to take is to require that the data requestor proactively provide all meter numbers for which data will be aggregated. This effectively transfers the responsibility for data accuracy to the building owner and removes the need for the utility provider to develop advanced queries to identify every single meter on their back end. However, this can place a burden on the data requestor both during the initial data request and on an ongoing basis since building owners would be responsible for informing the utility provider when tenants or meters change to update the meter-to-building mapping. This may negatively impact customer experience and customer satisfaction. Further, a property owner may not be aware of every meter or service point at which energy consumption data are being tracked within their property.

For this reason, the predominant approach for meter-to-building mapping in the context of utility-led data access is for the utility to identify the meters associated with a given property based on a limited set of data points and identifiers provided by the requestor. Typically, this would be the main property address and any secondary addresses (for example, an additional entrance on a cross street). Additional identifiers could include other values that the property owner would be expected to know, and that could help the utility fine-tune its query or confirm the identity of the requestor. Examples of these values are the utility account number for the “house meter” or common area meter controlled by the building owner. With this basic information, the utility can conduct a lookup of all meter/service points and accounts associated with the indicated address(es) and then return this list to the requestor for review, confirmation, and fine-tuning as needed. The confirmation step is critical in ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the aggregate data. Utilities are encouraged to provide requestors with an “itemized receipt” or other persistent documentation identifying all constituent meters that are rolled up into a given aggregate consumption value. Utilities may handle this by developing a dedicated web module to facilitate the initial meter-to-building mapping process and any ongoing mapping review as tenants move in and out of the property.^{Footnote 1}

Once a process for identifying the constituent meters is established, the utility provider will need to consider:

• Calendarization of the constituent meter data before aggregation. In a multimeter setting, different meters may have different start and end dates for each reading. Therefore, when providing aggregate whole-building consumption values to the building owner for entry into a benchmarking tool, the utility provider will need to calendarize each component record to accurately assign a single start and end date for each monthly aggregate meter consumption value. There are different approaches to calendarizing energy data, but a recommended methodology is to assign the energy consumption recorded for each constituent meter reading to a given calendar month based on the proportion of days in each meter reading period that falls into that calendar month.
• Provision of total/gross electricity consumed from the grid for properties with interconnected onsite renewable energy generation. If a property’s onsite renewable energy system is connected to the grid, and therefore can “sell back” to the utility any excess onsite production, the utility may bill for “net-metered” consumption. This amount is equal to total grid energy consumption for a given period minus the amount of energy sold back to the grid during the same period. Regardless, the aggregate energy consumption value delivered to the building owner for the purpose of benchmarking should reflect the gross (rather than net) amount of grid electricity delivered to the building for a given time. This is important given that all grid-connected buildings will need to consume at least some grid electricity, even if their net-metered consumption for the period is negative. The use of net-metered consumption data—rather than gross consumption—can lead to inaccurate benchmarking results given that benchmarking metrics are based on total energy required to operate a building.^{Footnote 2}
• Maintenance of historical data. The primary concern for many building owners may be to obtain whole-building energy consumption for the most recent calendar year to comply with an upcoming annual benchmarking reporting deadline. However, access to historical whole-building consumption data (for example, 5+ years old) may also be needed in other situations. This includes situations where significant “re-bills” have taken place based on corrected data; instances in which a new building owner seeks to establish a historical performance record for the property; and/or a building owner needs to establish a historical baseline to understand the target they need to achieve under a building performance standard.

The technical process of meter-to-building mapping, and the effort required to develop this approach, will differ from utility to utility based on the structure of their existing data system. The deployment of advanced metering infrastructure may provide an opportunity to use geographical information system platforms to assist with meter-to-building mapping, and/or the use of different data systems (for example, meter data management systems instead of billing information systems) may facilitate calendarization and accurate accounting of gross energy consumption for properties with onsite renewables.

Data access: Sample policy language

This sample policy language is intended to help develop clear direction regarding the provision of energy data needed for benchmarking. This data can be used by legislators and regulators when considering the best practices and lessons learned from utilities that have already implemented data access solutions.

Sample policy language

1. Utilities delivering energy to a covered property shall maintain whole-property energy consumption data for all buildings, for at least the most recent [xx]^{Footnote 3} months in an electronic format capable of being uploaded to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.
2. On and after [date], upon the request and authorization of a property representative, a utility shall provide the property representative with at least [xx]^{Footnote 4} consecutive months of energy consumption data for the specified property for all the fuel type(s) provided by the utility. Data must include total property energy consumption, accounting for all utility meters that measure energy consumption at the property, regardless of whether the associated accounts are paid by the property owner or the tenants. The utility shall provide the data to the requestor within [xx] days of receiving a data request, with the following considerations regarding format:
3. Data must be provided in an electronic format capable of being uploaded to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, or through the direct, secure upload to an ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager account specified by the property representative, using the Portfolio Manager Web Services application programming interface (API).
4. Energy consumption data must be provided in intervals that do not exceed 65 days. Utilities shall not provide electric or natural gas consumption data in quarterly or annual increments; however, this is allowable for any fuels that are delivered on an intermittent basis including fuel oil or diesel.
5. Where individual meters that are being aggregated have different start/end periods, that utility shall apply a calendarization approach consistent with that used by ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.
6. Utilities shall deliver data to the property representative in a manner that aggregates energy consumption data across all meters/accounts at the property. Prior to the delivery of aggregated consumption data, utilities shall coordinate with the property representative to identify and confirm the list of accounts and/or meters that will be used to calculate the aggregated total. To ensure accuracy and transparency over time, the utility will maintain a record of all accounts/meters that populate a given property’s aggregate consumption data in any given month. The utility shall ensure that this list does not contain individual tenant energy consumption.
7. For covered properties with [x]^{Footnote 5} or more tenants, utilities shall deliver to requestors the monthly aggregated energy usage data capturing total consumption of all relevant fuels across all accounts/meters at the property. For properties with [x] or more tenants, this aggregate energy data shall not be deemed confidential information by the utility for purposes of delivery to the property representative, and therefore will not require explicit authorization for data release by the individual tenants. For covered properties with fewer than [x] tenants, utilities shall deliver aggregate energy to the property representative if the property tenants provide written or electronic consent for the delivery of the tenant’s energy data to the property representative.
8. For covered properties that generate energy on-site using renewable energy systems, utilities must provide the property representative with data sufficient to calculate total gross electricity received by the property from the grid, regardless of net-metering arrangements. Utilities that provide property representatives with net-metered energy consumption data must also provide one or both of the following values:
9. Total electricity delivered by the utility to the property during a given monthly period, regardless of the quantity of energy delivered back to the grid by the property.
10. Total quantity of energy sent back to the grid by the property during a given monthly period.

Following initial upload of historical aggregate energy consumption data, the utility shall deliver ongoing aggregate consumption data at [monthly/quarterly]^{Footnote 6} intervals, subject to the specifications above, to facilitate continued benchmarking and the use of benchmarking data to identify and prioritize energy performance improvements over time.