A new building energy rating system prototype introduced by ASHRAE at its annual meeting in June may eventually make its way to Canada, giving commercial building owners another reason to make energy efficiency a top priority.

Building Energy Quotient or Building EQ (bEQ) focuses exclusively on energy consumption and rather than replace green building rating systems like LEED, has the potential to strengthen the energy component of such systems. New buildings will be eligible for an “as designed” (asset) rating based on the components specified in the design, including mechanical systems, building envelope, orientation, and day-lighting; and, once a building has one year’s worth of data on actual energy use it can achieve an “in operation” (operational) rating based on the structure of the building and how it is operated. Existing buildings can achieve both.

Building EQ provides information in a vertical scale with grades from F to A+, meaning building owners always have incentive to improve. Dieter Bartel, commercial energy specialist for Manitoba Hydro and a member of ASHRAE’s Building Energy Labeling Implementation Committee responsible for developing the label says Building EQ has potential in Canada, as the committee is now on the edge of discussions with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) about the development of a building rating system here.

“NRCan wants to keep it simple so the public can understand its implications and value, and it should also be something that works for existing buildings,” he said. It should be similar to Energy Star or EnerGuide in terms of marketability, he adds.

In performance terms, however, Building EQ goes beyond Energy Star, which is widely used to rate buildings in the U.S., because it provides numerical and qualitative scores on more building types.

The label itself will be easy to understand and targeted toward the general public, but a certificate providing technical information about the building’s operational properties will be the system’s most defining feature. This will allow for comparison between buildings similar in age, occupancy, and size with climate normalization factored in.

“That’s the horsepower behind the label that would make it a living, breathing entity,” said Bartel.

To make the best of the comparative capabilities of Building EQ, ASHRAE will need a robust data set, from which characteristic building comparisons with climate normalization can be drawn. Bartel says the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S., developer of Energy Star, compiles the results of a Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) every four years into a database, and that one possibility would be to work along side EPA to access this information. “Canada could also draw from the EPA’s expertise and resources to develop a survey for Canada,” says Bartel.

Philip Jago, director of buildings division of the office of energy efficiency of Natural Resources Canada, says benchmarking energy consumption isn’t necessarily easy to execute because of a knowledge gap in Canada that prevents building owners from recognizing where to begin or how to recognize problems with energy efficiency.

“If we give owners a rating system, will they move forward? Can you stimulate people to do things differently if they know the facility isn’t measuring up?” he says.

NRCan is currently conducting pilot projects that look at commercial building performance for energy efficiency with municipal buildings in Association quebecoise pour la maitrise en energie, City of Guelph, Region of Peel, Efficiency New Brunswick, City of Toronto, and City of Vancouver.

“The research is primarily to answer the question, ‘What are we doing and can we do better?’ If we can improve our knowledge of how our buildings are operating, we will have tremendous opportunities,” says Jago.

Although most of the data is complete on the pilots, it is too early to release the results of the individual projects. NRCan is also looking at changes to the National Building Code that will affect energy efficiency.

An official launch of Building EQ is scheduled for 2010. CWCJ