Local Law 84: Benchmarking

Energy audits identify energy-saving and cost-effective measures and provide an in-depth understanding of a building’s energy consumption. Retro-commissioning ensures that a building’s energy systems are operating as intended by current facility requirements. In alignment with the annual benchmarking, these processes work to ensure City buildings are efficient and high-performing.

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Improving building energy performance requires data, and energy benchmarking provides a detailed understanding of each building’s energy use. Benchmarking enables the City to identify which facilities are operating inefficiently and prioritize for energy efficiency investments. Benchmarking also allows the City to compare similar buildings, monitor performance over time, and provide important feedback to agencies’ leadership and facility staff.

In accordance with Local Law 84, DEM has coordinated with City agencies to annually benchmark almost 3,000 municipal buildings (either owned by the City or for which the City pays all or part of the annual energy bill) with more than 10,000 square feet. DEM then submits the City buildings benchmarking results to the Department of Finance (DOF) (link) for publication as part of the City’s Greener, Greater Buildings Plan (link).

Local Law 84 of 2009: Benchmarking (link)

New York City Government Building Energy Benchmarking Report (link)

The City’s benchmarking report shows: 

• current building source energy intensity,
• total facility greenhouse gas emissions,
• and current Energy Star rating, if available. This rating is generated by the U.S. EPA’s Portfolio Manager (link) benchmarking tool, which compares the energy use of each building to that of the national average energy use of similar buildings.

The benchmarking process involves measuring the total electricity, natural gas, steam, and fuel oil consumed in a building while adjusting for other factors such as location, building type, year of construction, number of workers, gross square footage, and other operational data. The data used to generate this report were collected and reported by each City agency. The information in this report is subject to change due to data quality improvements, energy efficiency and conservation efforts, and changes in building use over time.