Are Your Retrofits Really Paying Off?
Since a variety of energy services contracts require proving the energy savings, this is obviously a key question. It’s not a simple question, though, as many factors, including weather, occupancy, thermostat settings, as well as equipment functionality, could affect your building’s energy use and costs.
Measurement & Verification (M&V) is a data-driven process for verifying the energy savings by comparing post-retrofit energy use with a baseline model from pre-retrofit energy use. It could be done on specific retrofits or whole building energy use, based on either statistical or calibrated models of your building.
Real world M&V, however, is plagued by high costs, complexity, and confusing results. Retrofit vendors spend enormous amounts of time compiling data in Excel spreadsheets, and building operators don’t trust the results from something they couldn’t see or replicate themselves.
Open Source = Fast, Transparent, Believable M&V
That’s why we created opentaps, a unique open source M&V platform that combines both Building Automation Systems (BAS) data and utility meter readings with pre-integrated statistical models. So you can perform retrofit-specific (ASHRAE 14/IPMVP Option A or B) M&V using BAS data:
Or whole building level (ASHRAE 14/IPMVP Option C or D) M&V using utility meter data:
By making opentaps open source, we want both vendors and building owners have the access to the same data and models, so everyone could have confidence in the results. Click here to read more about how we’re Making M&V Believable Again.