In 2016, the City of Chicago will require all residential and commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet to benchmark their energy use. Get started before you get notified.

The benchmarking ordinance entails:

1. Data input into the ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager; items like:

• Whole building square footage (including commercial tenants).
• Historic gas and electric utility consumption for ALL metered tenants (which involves setting up a ComEd EUDS account and making sure all secondary addresses are included; as well as navigating People Gas’ large building energy use request platform and getting all required tenant release forms signed).
• Facility data as specific as the number of laundry hook-ups, which requires an understanding of the intricacies of the Portfolio Manager platform so that an accurate score is generated and no alerts are found.

2. Verification of your data by an engineer or architect the 1st year and then every 3rd year thereafter; some firms charge as much as $2,500.00 for this service, but due to our large volume and trusted expertise, the fee we negotiated for 2015 verification was $499 (which is expect to hold for 2016).

3. Submittal of information to the City via the ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager.

You could take the time to study the 43 page benchmarking guide provided by the city, or you can contact Alternative Utility Services, Inc. who is offering no cost benchmarking services to properties that sign-up before the end of the year (free for the first year, and every year thereafter if you become our customer for additional services).

Contact us today at 800-392-4287 or BENCHMARKING@AUSenergy.com to get started and attend a free 20-minute webinar on benchmarking 101. Visit the City of Chicago Benchmarking website for more information about the Chicago Ordinance.

Our Expertise

We have successfully benchmarked, verified and submitted data for more than 60 properties (over 250,000 square feet) before the 2015 deadline. We are an independent energy procurement consultant specializing in holistic energy management through: water conservation measures, lighting retrofits, equipment upgrades and whole building energy audits.