Regency Centers — Arapahoe Village Shopping Center Boulder, Co
Rating and Reporting building energy use in complex buildings with multiple use types, tenants and meters
Regency Centers’ Arapahoe Village Shopping Center located at 2580 Arapahoe Avenue is a complex strip mall with multiple tenants, diverse building uses and a large number of utility meters. In partnership with the city’s Boulder Building Performance Program, Regency Centers’ received assistance with rating and reporting building energy use, including a basic building site evaluation that looked at types of use, occupancy and utility metering arrangements.
Using information about each tenant's pace and following the City of Boulder’s “How-To Guide,” Regency Centers was able to establish an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) for the property. Using Xcel Energy’s Energy Benchmarking Portal (Portal), Regency Centers automatically uploaded tenant utility data for each meter into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, bringing the building into compliance with the city’s rating and reporting requirements.
Complying with new requirements and using newly developed processes on a complex facility did not come without challenges. Some of the lessons learned are presented below.
Building Data
- Building type: Strip mall
- Year built: 1980
- Gross floor area: 570,711 square feet
- Number of tenants: 23
- Number of stories: 1
Recommendations For Building Owners
Building owners, or a designated person, should have an initial conversation with all of the tenants who pay utility bills directly to understand each type of fuel used, metering and billing arrangements.
For complex buildings, obtaining the meter and premise numbers from utility bills will help reduce errors in the utility’s Portal. Understanding which meters are associated with the property is necessary to conduct quality control and ensure accurate data is received from the utility.
Read all instructions and requirements carefully because the utility’s online Portal does not produce automated error messages or potential solutions to incorrect data. Building owners will need to contact the utility to understand the cause for any errors.
Lessons Learned
- Fuel Provider. The Portal only uploads data for the fuels supplied by the utility directly. If a tenant receives natural gas from another supplier, the utility is not able to upload that data, even if it transports it. The owner must manually collect and upload the data from other suppliers. This stresses the importance for building owners to understand the fuel types and suppliers for all tenants in the building to plan accordingly for data collection.
- Data Privacy Rules. If a building owner would like to rate and report building energy use by meter or by tenant, the utility provider will require a tenant consent form be completed and submitted before the data can be released. The utility will not release data to the property manager or owner if the name of the individual making the request does not match the name associated with the utility account without consent from the account holder. Tenant consent may also be required in the event data privacy rules are triggered as set forth by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
- Building Ownership. For multi-tenant properties, the utility verifies building ownership based on the account holder of the common space utility meter at the building; if the building does not have a common meter, the utility will use the tax assessor database to verify building ownership.
- Meter Active Dates. When inputting “meter active dates” into the Portal, each meter needs to be input with the date that corresponds to the earliest utility billing data the utility as provided; otherwise, energy metrics will not be calculated. Portfolio Manager’s data checker does not currently identify this issue as the cause for error. Verifying the meter active dates should be done after the utility has uploaded data into Portfolio Manager, or if energy metrics are reported as “not available” in the tool.
- Meter Inventory. Taking a physical inventory of all meters on the property, including meter numbers, will be beneficial when requesting data from the utility, particularly for building owners with complex, multi-tenant buildings. This will allow the owner to verify that the utility is providing data for the correct meters. It will also assist with determining whether the meters are serviced by other fuel suppliers. If an owner cannot produce a physical meter list, they can contact the utility’s service center.
- Meter Naming. Portal software limits the meter name in Portfolio Manager to 55 characters. If the 55- character limit is exceeded, the share will not go through and no error message appears explaining the problem. Owners must ensure all meter names are 55 characters or less when initially entering them into Portfolio Manager.
Crossroads Garden Office Building — 1800 30th Street Boulder, Co
Rating and Reporting energy use provides insight into tenant use and efficiency opportunities. Constructed in 1972, Crossroads Garden opened as a tennis and sports center complex and was later converted to an office building. Over the years, the building has undergone several renovations, including a partial LED lighting upgrade for parking and common use areas, and additional LED upgrades are planned.
In partnership with the city’s Boulder Building Performance program (BBP), the owner of Crossroads Garden received support to interpret the energy metrics, such as energy-use intensity (EUI), derived during the rating and reporting (R&R) process and to identify no- and low-cost efficiency measures based on building energy use data.
Review of the R&R results and monthly energy data revealed that although recent LED lighting upgrades had lowered energy use, Crossroads Garden had higher than usual baseline electric use as compared to other buildings of similar type, size and use. The report also revealed that a single tenant accounted for more than one-third of the building’s energy use.
The building energy use data review identified opportunities for no- and low-cost energy efficiency measures such as occupancy sensors and adjusting, fixing or upgrading inoperable or missing common space energy controls to improve scheduling. The most energy-intensive tenant has committed to working with the building owner to improve energy efficiency moving forward.
Planned lighting upgrades and implementation of the recommended measures are estimated to increase Crossroads Garden’s ENERGY STAR score from its current 67 to 78. In addition to cost savings from improved efficiency, a score of 78 would be high enough to apply for ENERGY STAR certification and would result in an exemption from the remaining BBP ordinance requirements. A complete list of recommended no- and low-cost efficiency measures as well as their anticipated results are reflected on the right.
Building Data
- Gross floor area: 53,971 square feet (sf)
- Site EUI: 78 kBtu/sf
- National median EUI: 67.3 kBtu/sf
- Building type: Office
- Tenants: Over 50
- ENERGY STAR® score: 67
Benchmark Analysis
- ENERGY STAR® score indicates opportunity to save energy
- Monthly energy data correlation to Boulder climate shows higher than usual electric baseline – leading to identification of high-use tenant
- Rating and reporting results combined with building walkthrough identified potential lighting and schedule control measures
Recommended Measures
- Add or include lighting occupancy sensors for meeting rooms, restrooms and other intermittent use spaces
- Convert analog thermostats to digital programmable thermostats with scheduling capability
- Vending machine energy controller
- Continued engagement with city business sustainability advisors
- Adjust, fix or upgrade common space energy controls to improve scheduling
- Special attention to high-use tenant space to find additional savings
Anticipated Results
- Current electric use: 840,000 kWh/yr
- Estimated energy savings: 76,500 kWh/yr
- Estimated savings percent: 9%
- Estimated cost savings: $9,200
- Estimated measure cost: $11,000
King Soopers — 1650 30th Street Boulder, Co
Rating and reporting reveals no- and low-cost path to high performance
King Soopers supermarket at 1650 30th St. has undergone several renovations since it was originally constructed in 1982, including enclosing the atrium area near the front entrance, upgrading all interior lighting to more efficient T8s, and retrofitting refrigeration case lighting to LED technology. The store has central refrigeration and recycles much of the excess energy to condition the surrounding space.
In partnership with the city’s Boulder Building Performance Program (BBP), King Soopers received support to interpret the energy metrics, such as energy-use intensity (EUI), derived during the rating and reporting (R&R) process and to identify no- and low-cost efficiency measures based on building energy use data.
Review of the R&R results revealed the hours of operation were not accounted for correctly in the reporting tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Emphasizing the importance of accurate data entry, simply correcting the operating hours entry to reflect true operating hours increased the building’s ENERGY STAR score from 59 to 66.
Review of the energy metrics also revealed a peak in winter electric use and a building walkthrough identified opportunities for no- and low-cost energy efficiency improvements. The improvements include heater controls, cooler case doors and retrocommissioning, which could be paid for in part by incentives provided by the current utility provider Xcel Energy. The impact of implementing these measures is estimated to increase King Soopers’ ENERGY STAR score to 72.
A list of these recommended no- and low-cost efficiency measures as well as their anticipated results are reflected on the right.
Additional opportunities for upgrading interior and exterior lighting to LEDs, which King Soopers has expressed interest in, could further raise the building ENERGY STAR score up to 85. In addition to cost savings from improved efficiency, a score of 85 would be high enough to apply for ENERGY STAR certification and would result in an exemption from the remaining BBP ordinance requirements.
Building Data
- Gross floor area: 61,317 square feet (sf)
- Site EUI: 187.1 kBtu/sf
- National median site EUI: 209.2 kBtu/sf
- Building type: Supermarket/Grocery store
- ENERGY STAR® score: 66
Benchmark Analysis
- ENERGY STAR® score indicates an opportunity to save energy
- Monthly energy data correlation to Boulder climate shows high base electric energy use and peak in winter, leading toa search for causes
- Quick building walkthrough identified other recommended measures listed below
- RECOMMENDED MEASURES
- HVAC retrocommissioning to identify the cause of the electricity increase in winter and identify other operational savings, such as better control of infrared heating elements on mezzanine
- Retrofit of open multi-deck cooler cases with solid glass doors ANTICIPATED RESULTS
- Current electric use: 2,770,000 kWh/yr
- Estimated energy savings: 91,600 kWh/yr
- Estimated savings percent: 3.3%
- Estimated cost savings: $7,300
- Estimated measure cost: $27,000
- Simple payback: 3.6 years
- ENERGY STAR score: 72