If you own or represent a building that is 50,000 square feet or larger, it’s time to start thinking about writing a report on your building’s energy and water usage for the Energy and Water Reporting and Benchmarking (EWRB) regulation.
The EWRB, first announced in 2016, was designed to improve energy and water efficiency in large, privately owned buildings, and is the first province-wide regulation of its kind implemented in Canada.
How Does Consumption Benchmarking Help Owners?
According to a report conducted in 2013, buildings in Ontario made up 19 per cent of Ontario’s 2013 green house gas emissions. By implementing mandatory disclosures of building performance, the Ontario government aimed to motivate building owners to compete with one another and strive to improve building performance year over year.
Energy and water usage can represent some of the largest operating costs in your building. Energy and water consumption reporting helps to:
- Manage energy and water use and costs
- Identify best practices and saving opportunities
- Set and achieve measurable goals
- Evaluate results by comparing properties
- Measure improvement over time
- Improve energy and water efficiency in buildings
Is My Building Affected by EWRB?
EWRB applies to privately owned buildings that are 50,000 square feet or larger. This includes commercial and institutional property types, multi-unit residential property and industrial property such as warehouses and transport terminals.
If you own these types of building, then it’s mandatory that you report the building’s energy and water usage to the province every year.
For detailed reporting information, visit the Province of Ontario’s energy and water reporting guide.
What Do You Need To Include In The Utility Usage Report?
You’re getting started on your reporting and preparing for benchmarking, but what exactly do you need to include in your consumption report?
1. Basic building information, size, property types
Gather basic information about your building, including building size, location, year built, occupancy and property name. Create an Energy Star profile for your account and input all the information.
If you have multiple buildings on your property, be sure to properly categorize them based on Energy Star property type guidelines.
2. Report your building utility sage data
Due to the number of parties involved in the reporting process, it’s important to begin planning your report early. While July 1st is due date for submissions to the province of Ontario, utilities need to be notified by February 28th in order to gather their monthly aggregate data for your buildings.
Don’t wait; find a trusted engineering partner to ensure these reports are completed on time, and accurately.
Contact your utilities companies and ask them to provide the following:
- Whole building water and energy consumption data
- Monthly consumption data if possible
- Data required for benchmarking period, even if current owner was not the owner during the required time
Some utilities may provide online access to monthly consumption data, which makes this process easier.
3. Verify data with a certified professional
To ensure that your utility usage report is complaint, it’s important to verify the information with a certified professional. For buildings over 100,000 square foot, this step is mandatory.
Property managers will have to confirm the verification and provide additional supporting documentation when submitting the data into the Energy Star portfolio manager.
Need To Complete Your Utility Usage Report?
At Keller Jansen Engineers, we are experts on condominium, commercial and residential building types. Our professionally certified engineers use sound, practical engineering judgment when evaluating and inspecting buildings.
We now offer energy and water consumption reporting for multi-unit residential buildings like condominiums and commercial spaces.
Contact us today to learn more about our inspection process and book an appointment.