American Utility Management Releases Multifamily Energy Benchmarking Tool

American Utility Management (AUM) has released AUMScore, a multifamily energy benchmarking tool that will enable property owners to compare their properties' energy usage across their own portfolios and across the multifamily industry. The tool, which was developed in conjunction with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), promises to help owners drastically reduce their energy expenses and consumption by benchmarking energy use within a portfolio using continuously updated information from similar peer properties.Annually, a 250 unit building can have average gas and electric usage totaling $200,000. In testing, the AUMScore benchmarking tool has shown the capacity to show multifamily property owners real savings opportunities. Recently, AUM identified an opportunity to save up to $50,000 in energy costs in a year for just one building in a portfolio.AUMScore (SCORE stands for "Statistical Comparison of Relative Efficiency") is the result of a year-long energy efficiency study which interviewed over 300 property owners representing over 2,400 multifamily properties throughout the U.S. Benchmarking with AUMScore allows property owners to compare their property's energy efficiency to other similar properties in their portfolio or in a given region using as many as 30 variables per property."Utility and energy expenses are the third-largest expenditure for multifamily property owners, and the ability to effectively manage this expense is critical to increase net operating income (NOI), a priority for every property owner," said Michael Miller, President and CEO of AUM. "Other benchmarking tools on the market don't take into consideration the unique variables that affect multifamily building energy consumption. A true energy efficiency benchmark considers properties of like configuration, geographic region, property type, and other like property characteristics including cost and consumption to determine energy efficiency among a peer group."AUMScore employs data envelopment analysis, a statistical model that compares up to 30 variables per property to determine which properties are the most efficient in their peer group. The tool uses a 12-month rolling total of energy and water usage to assure the most current data is utilized and smoothed out seasonally. The most efficient properties will receive an efficiency score of 100, and as they decrease in efficiency, property scores are decreased.AUMScore is the only benchmark tool in the multifamily industry with the flexibility to incorporate additional input and output variables as they become more relevant through research and market trending. Additionally, AUMScore includes specific property trending reports and identifies energy reduction goals while comparing energy efficiency percentages. Property owners now have a tool to track real-time energy use throughout their entire real estate portfolio.Owners who consult with AUM to implement new energy-efficiency initiatives will be able to track their efficiency improvements while significantly reducing their energy costs."AUMScore allows multifamily owners to measure themselves with the same energy benchmarking standards that other industries have," continued Miller. "Through our research, we found that half of property owners that thought they were benchmarking their properties were actually doing baseline studies or energy-trend studies. These types of energy analyses do not award each property an energy efficiency score which can be measured against the efficiency of a like-peer group."To learn more about how AUMScore uses data envelopment analysis to save owners thousands per year, watch the video, which can be found here. For a full tutorial on the tool and benchmarking the AUM way, please visit their blog at www.blog.aum-inc.com , or contact Leigh Sperun at (610) 228-2108 or at .