Database helps building owners, investors evaluate energy-efficient buildings

R&D Magazine
June 18, 2013

A new database of building features and energy use data helps building managers, owners, real estate investors and lenders evaluate the financial results of energy efficiency investment projects and identify high- and low-performing buildings.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Building Performance Database (BPD) is being developed by a team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Environmental Energy Technologies Division led by Staff Scientist Paul Mathew. Berkeley Lab is partnering with Building Energy Inc. (Portland, Ore.) for the software implementation. Building Energy Inc. specializes in software solutions to integrate disparate building energy use and characteristics data sets.

“The real estate investment community, building managers and owners asked the DOE for a tool to help them better evaluate the financial costs and benefits of energy-efficiency projects in buildings, to help them guide investment decisions. DOE responded by establishing the Buildings Performance Database, which we are developing under their direction,” says Mathew.