Government Issues Building Energy and Water Submetering Report

Government Issues Building Energy and Water Submetering Report

For Immediate Release: November 8, 2011

Contact: Mark Bello
301-975-3776

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new interagency report recommends systematic consideration of new metering technologies that can yield up-to-date, finely grained snapshots of energy and water usage in commercial and residential buildings to guide efficiency improvements and capture the advantages of a modernized electric power grid.

While the return on investment (ROI) for these monitoring and measurement technologies—or submeters—depends on specific energy-efficiency strategies that may vary by climate, building type, and other factors, "numerous case studies provide evidence that the ROI can be significant,” concludes the report, Submetering of Building Energy and Water Usage: Analysis and Recommendations of the Subcommittee on Buildings Technology Research and Development. “Further, submetering provides the necessary infrastructure for more advanced conservation and efficiency techniques.”

The report is a product of the http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/buildingtechnology/">Buildings Technology Research and Development Subcommittee of the http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/nstc">National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), a cabinet-level council that is the principal means within the executive branch to coordinate science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the federal research and development enterprise. The subcommittee is currently co-chaired by Roland Risser, manager of the Buildings Technologies Program at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and William Grosshandler, deputy director of the Engineering Laboratory at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The report notes that devices to monitor and measure resource use can be deployed at successively finer levels of resolution, from individual buildings and rooms in a complex down to specific building systems or water and electrical outlets. As compared with one-time, large-scale audits of energy or water use, submetering provides specific, real-time information that can be used to pinpoint variations in performance, optimize automated building systems, and encourage building managers and occupants to adopt energy-conserving behaviors. Each of these potential outcomes can dramatically improve building performance and lead to reduced resource consumption.

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