By Emily Artale and Hillary Dobos

One of the first steps of any successful energy management program should be an analysis and review of your building’s utility data. This is one way in which your building tells a story of its performance. We, as Energy Managers, use this story to verify personal narratives of your building’s operation, evaluate opportunities for improvement, identify patterns and trends of energy consumption, and benchmark against similar facilities. And, sometimes we can use this data to identify immediate solutions for cost savings.

How can such a seemingly simple resource provide so much valuable information? Utility data is objective and accurate; it documents actual consumption values and actual costs with an infallible memory. It can tell us when the building becomes occupied, when the building is reaching its peak demand, and when abnormalities in use and costs occur.

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