Developing a standardized categorization system for energy efficiency measures (1836-RP)

Abstract

The growth of legislation to reduce energy use in existing buildings is producing a rich new trove of data about energy efficiency measures (EEMs), which has the potential to unlock new insights into the built environment. However, the lack of standardized EEM naming conventions and categorization methods is currently a major barrier to aggregating and analyzing this data. The goal of this study was to develop and test a novel standardized system for categorizing EEMs. The system consists of two components: a three-level building element-based categorization hierarchy, and a set of measure name tags, which are used to label an EEM and categorize it on the hierarchy. A demonstration and testing process was developed and applied to two sample datasets to evaluate the ability of the system to categorize a variety of EEMs. The results show that most EEMs can easily be categorized manually according to the new system, and highlight several challenges for automated categorization, including EEM names that are missing an element, contain a term not in the tag list, or contain synonyms or abbreviations. These results provide a replicable and systematic framework for the translation, aggregation, and analysis of EEM datasets from different sources.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the members of the Project Monitoring Subcommittee (PMS) for their guidance and feedback: Chris Balbach (Chair), Rob Hitchcock, and Adam Hinge. Special thanks to the members of the Project Advisory Board (PAB) for generously sharing their time, technical expertise, and insight: Marco Ascazubi, Honey Berk, David Hodgins, Jim Kelsey, Nicholas Long, Paul Mathew, Ben O’Donnell, and David Sachs. Additional thanks to others who contributed their expertise at PMS and PAB meetings, especially Travis Walter and Harry Bergmann.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data and code that support the findings of this study are openly available at: https://github.com/retrofit-lab/ashrae-1836-rp-categorization

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by ASHRAE through 1836-RP, Developing a Standardized Categorization System for Energy Efficiency Measures. The project was sponsored by TC 7.6 Building Energy Performance, and co-sponsored by SSPC 100 Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings and the Building EQ Committee.