Many offices have their utilities included in their rent or don’t have separately metered bills. Where we don’t have exact data, carbonhound has built a methodology to help estimate this energy usage from your office.

Our methodology will shift and improve as we get more data, which is why it is always much better to enter in your utility data so that you can track your progress against your goals.

Energy Estimates Methodology:

Case 1: I don’t know my energy types

1. Get list of energy types that makes up the average mix in that region
2. Get the base PSF energy intensity by region (i.e. NL 0.97 GJ/m2)
3. For each energy type, multiply the regional energy usage by type (this has been converted to kwh or mmbtu) by the office square footage
4. Creates batches of estimated items with all of the activities figured out for the period from the move-in date of that location to current month

Case 2: 2 known energy types, no access to bills = yes for both

1. Get list of user defined energy types, regional energy usage per square meter
2. Pull regional energy use value by type(gj/m2/year) for each energy type, add them together (denominator of ratio)
3. Create energy type usage ratio: Take the regional energy use value by type(gj/m2/year)/sum of regional energy use value of all selected types(gj/m2/year) for each energy type
4. Get energy usage in gj/m2: Multiple energy type usage ratios for each energy type by the regional energy usage per square meter
5. Convert to gj/ft2
6. Convert to relevant units (mmbtu or kwh)
7. Multiply by office square footage
8. Creates batches of estimated items with all of the activities figured out for the period from the move-in date of that location to current month

Case 3: 2 energy types, one with and one without access to bills

1. Get list of user defined energy types, regional energy usage per square meter
2. Pull regional energy use value by type(gj/m2/year) for each energy type
3. For the energy type we have access to bills for, subtract the regional energy use value for that type from the regional energy usage per square meter
4. Allocate the remaining energy to the energy type that has no access to bills
5. Convert to gj/ft2
6. Convert to relevant units (mmbtu or kwh)
7. Multiply by office square footage
8. Creates batches of estimated items with all of the activities figured out for the period from the move-in date of that location to current month

Case 4: Energy is not separately metered but I have access to my bills

1. Require inputs for office’s square footage and the total building square footage
2. Take the ratio (office square footage/total building square footage) and multiply by the total usage data of the utility bills for the building.