B3 Benchmarking Newsletter

In this newsletter:

• Multi-Use Buildings
• ENERGY STAR® Integration
• Meter Source Types
• Submetering
• Estimated Data
• Map Functionality
• Upcoming Features
• Upcoming Webinars

Multi-Use Buildings

For those with multi-use buildings, B3 buildings can now be defined with multiple building types in addition to customizing the space areas within. Below is an example of a city hall building that had customized the spaces to account for a library, police station and data center also housed within it. Going forward, the building can be defined as four distinct building types with a selected primary building type. The space areas within each building type can still be customized as well.

To reconfigure a multi-use building, click the Add a Building Type button. Select the building type and specify the percentage of the gross building sf. Use the scale icon to adjust the percentage of the original primary building type. Within each building type, customize the space asset areas if applicable. The building types and respective space asset areas will carry to the Operations, Advanced and ENERGY STAR tabs so ensure all are accurately updated.

ENERGY STAR Integration

With the implementation of multi-use buildings, B3 integration with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager has been updated to tie each B3 building type to an ESPM property type. Reconfiguring the B3 buildings into building types allows B3 to gather the necessary ESPM use details for each.

Meter Source Types

Electric and renewable energy source icons were recently updated. B3 has also added additional energy source types to accommodate coal, coke, diesel, and kerosene. Where applicable, B3 will prompt for type. If you already have a fuel oil meter, the type field is now available on the Options tab of the meter editor.

If you need to change the source type for an existing meter, first add the new meter type(s). From Tools menu, open the Import Meter Readings window and click Download Template. Open the Excel file and copy the readings from the existing meter over to the new meter. Save the changes and import the Excel file into B3. Once the readings are part of the new meter, delete the old meter.

 

Submetering

Submeters within B3 can now be connected to master meters that are of differing source types or unit measurements. For example, your campus has a heating plant that provides steam produced from a natural gas boiler. The natural gas meter from the utility would be entered as the master meter. The individual buildings would have steam submeters tied back to the natural gas master meter.

Reminder that virtual submeters can be created and usage from a master meter can be auto allocated by entering a percent. This may be helpful in campus situations where a meter is shared across buildings and creating an allocated meter with estimated usage allows the separation of sites. Or with renewable energy that is generated at one site, but the organization wants to allocate some of the renewable usage to another site to meet carbon goals.

Estimated Data

Sometimes actual data isn’t available, whether that be usage or costs, or the utility reports estimated readings. Within the meter editor, readings can now be flagged as estimated by checking the Est? checkbox. In cases of submetering, costs for the specific meter may be unavailable. Or sometimes with utility automation, a utility may not provide costs. In these scenarios, B3 can uses the state’s average utility costs to calculate these. The state average utility costs are collected from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and are updated annually.

Map Functionality

Within each map, there are now icons to allow you to control the tilt of the view and if tilt is enabled, change the rotation.

For those programs that have maps within their reports, the formatting of these has been updated to more closely align with the view seen within the application.

 

Upcoming Features

B3 continues to make updates to dashboard widgets. Some of these include updates to the map, costs and potential savings widgets. The pins and details displayed in the map widget can now be tied to any of the 4 metrics for either energy or water. The cost and potential savings widgets can have their scope specific to either All Energy or All Water. Coming in the February release, we will have further updates to existing widgets as well as new widgets.

B3 continues to expand on the availability of fields for custom exports. Some recent ones include potential savings by end use, potential savings of CO2e, total energy cost, and total water cost. There are more fields to come but if you have specific fields you’d like to see included, let us know!