A proposed ASHRAE and ACCA standard that will establish consistent practices for conducting and reporting energy audits is open for public comment from August 5 until September 19, 2016.
The ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 211P, Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits defines the procedures required to perform ASHRAE Level 1, 2 and 3 Energy Audits and provide a common scope of work for these audit levels for use by building owners and others, as well as establish standardized industry practices and minimum reporting requirements for the results.
An initial Advisory Public Review (non-ANSI) of the standard that closed in December 2015 resulted in these changes:
- Expansion of scope to include multi-family residential buildings.
- Modification of requirements for energy auditor qualifications.
- Addition of specific guidance around the energy audit quality control process.
- Improvement of reporting forms for usability.
- Review of reporting formats for compatibility with BuildingSync, the DOE protocol for transmitting energy audit data with XML files.
- Addition of optional input guidance to for compatibility with the DOE’s Asset Score rating approach for existing building assessments.
- Updated procedures guidance to be more audit customer-oriented and include measures for reasons beyond energy-savings benefits.
- Refined guidance around Level 3 procedures.
- Clarified actions for energy auditor vs what may be supervised.
- Removal of energy efficiency measure recommendations appendix (these are found in ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 100-2006, Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings).
- Addition of guidance for Building Energy Model Calibration
- Edits based on reviewer comments to make the standard more usable, clear and effective.
