ASHRAE standard establishes consistency for reporting building energy use

ASHRAE has just issued a revised standard to establish a more consistent and fairer approach for reporting and comparing the energy usage of buildings.

The newly revised ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 105-2014 is called, “Standard Methods of Determining, Expressing, and Comparing Building Energy Performance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.”

Current designers adopt various ways of measuring a building’s energy use, which can of course affect the results. ASHRAE explains: “When it comes to the how-to of measuring a building’s energy use, there is much to take into consideration. Are the measurements of a building’s area — used in the equation to derive energy use per square foot — to be taken from the exterior dimensions or to the centerline of the wall? Since they are normally unoccupied, are storage spaces to be included or not?”

As another example of the mismatch that might occur without a consistent approach, Keith Emerson chair of the Standard 105 committee says: “For instance, comparing one building’s summer energy use to another building’s winter use would be comparing apples and oranges.”

The new edition can be used for comparing design options, for comparing energy resources used, and greenhouse gas emissions created.

At the same time the standard allows some flexibility: “To keep the standard flexible, a number of decisions are left to those who adopt it, including what should be calculated beyond site energy and the multipliers for those additional calculations,” Emerson says.

To obtain the standard, click here.