In 2015 the City of Portland enacted Ordinance 187095.  It requires all office, retail, grocery, health care, higher education and hotel buildings greater than 50,000 sq. ft. (20,000 sq. ft. starting in 2017) to report their annual energy use to the City of Portland.  This is called "energy benchmarking."

If you choose to have a service provider do this work, you must report the name of this service provider to the City of Portland by February 28th.

The benchmarking work needs to be completed every year by April 22nd for the previous calendar year.  Buildings not energy benchmarked by the deadline can have their building owner(s) fined up to $500 for every 90 days they are out of compliance.

Energy Benchmarking Services can gather your building's energy-related information, enter it properly into the designated online tool, and quickly complete this before the upcoming deadline.  And we can help you maintain compliance on-going so your building is always in line with the city's energy benchmarking ordinance.

For a free consultation contact Michael Jones, Energy Benchmarking Services, at 206-245-8737 or mj@EnergyBenchmarkingServices.com

Services:

Set-up Service: Sets up energy reporting for your building(s) - Allow Energy Benchmarking Services to complete the following steps for you to ensure that your reporting is done correctly and timely:

• Collect your building's specifications and energy use information
• Set up your building's profile in the EPA online tool: Portfolio Manager
• In Portfolio Manager, set up your building's energy use information provided by local utilities
• Grant access to the City of Portland to audit your building's energy use (required by the city)

These steps require the collection and management of relevant data, much like doing your taxes.  Energy Benchmarking Services will save you the time and effort of doing this, while ensuring that your building's energy use has been reported accurately and is in compliance with the city's Energy Benchmarking ordinance.

Set-up Service Pricing: The basic building required to be benchmarked is one that is 50,000 sq ft and uses electricity as its only energy source.  It would take a new user approximately 20-30 hours to learn and complete the benchmarking work for this type of building.  Energy Benchmarking Services's charge for this basic building configuration is $850.

Variations from this configuration in the following areas will add incrementally to the cost of the work (or to the time for a new user to complete the work):

• Buildings greater than 50,000 sq ft
• Buildings that have multiple uses 
• Buildings that use energy sources beyond electricity such as natural gas

Annual Compliance Service: Ensures that your building's energy reporting remains compliant throughout the year - Allow Energy Benchmarking Services to maintain your building's online energy benchmarking account, and ensure that it is ready for the city's annual audit each April.  This includes:

• Confirming all aspects of your building's online account are ready for the annual April audit
• Taking any needed actions based on changes from the City of Portland, the EPA or any of the utilities
• Providing a "Statement of Energy Performance" when requested by a third party
• Keeping the building owner/manager posted about any information related to changes to their building's energy benchmarking account

Annual Compliance Service Pricing: As described above in the Set-up Service Pricing, the basic building that needs to maintain annual compliance is 50,000 sq ft and uses electricity as its only energy source.  Annual Compliance Service pricing for this type of building starts at $600 per year.  And like the Set-up Service, variations from this basic building configuration will add incrementally to the cost of this service.

Related Links

• EPA Portfolio Manager
• City of Portland Energy Benchmarking Administrative Rules