Construction Services

Building Benchmarking

Los Angeles' Existing Buildings Energy and Water Efficiency (EBEWE) ordinance and California's AB802 require buildings to benchmark and reduce consumption while ensuring data transparency.

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Overview

The City of Los Angeles established the Existing Buildings Energy and Water Efficiency (EBEWE) ordinance in 2017 to encourage building owners to reduce energy and water consumption through benchmarking and performance requirements. Under the EBEWE ordinance, the City of Los Angeles requires that all buildings over 20,000 square feet (including municipal buildings over 7,500 square feet) conduct annual benchmarking of their energy and water use and then take action to reduce their consumption. 

A summary of the benchmarking provisions in the EBEWE ordinance can be found on the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) website.

Additionally, the State of California AB 802 followed by establishing a statewide building energy use benchmarking and public disclosure program under AB 802. AB 802 revises PRC Section 25402.10 to require utilities to provide energy consumption data for covered buildings to the building owners upon request, and requires the Energy Commission to establish a building energy use benchmarking and public disclosure program for certain buildings. A summary of the benchmarking provisions in AB 802 can be found on the CEC's website.
 

Benefits of Benchmarking

Benchmarking efforts allow owners and occupants to understand their building’s performance and identify the following opportunities:

  • Building owners may see cost savings through lower utility bills, and reduced maintenance and operating costs.
  • While water and electric bills can go down, property value may go up.
  • Those working in the building get a more comfortable and healthier work environment.
  • All Angelenos benefit from reduced carbon pollution by offsetting the need for generating energy from traditional fossil fuel power sources.

Improving your building's performance can cut operation and maintenance costs while ensuring long-term property value and resilience. Los Angeles' building policy focuses on energy and water measures that will ensure community resilience and put the City on a sustainable track for the future. 
 

The ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager® (ESPM) is a free online tool that allows you to track the energy and water use for the entire building, and comply with the City ordinance and State Legislation. Use the ESPM to:

  • Generate weather-normalized energy use intensity and greenhouse gas emissions metrics for your building
  • Get an ENERGY STAR® energy performance score between 1 and 100 for many eligible buildings.
  • Create custom reports that enable users to view time-trending information and compare buildings within your portfolio.

LADWP has established an interface with ESPM that will enable you to benchmark your building’s energy and water consumption.

Who is Benchmarking?

How to Get Started

First Year Benchmarking

Follow these steps to obtain your building's aggregated usage data.

  1. Obtain a LADBS Building ID (BID) or CEC Benchmarking Reference Number (BRN). Either are required to receive usage data.
  2. Create an ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®  (ESPM) account and property profile.
  3. Submit the LADWP benchmarking application and acceptable documentation. Please note that application processing may take 4-6 weeks. The Los Angeles Benchmarking Guide recommends submitting data request(s) no later than March 1st to allow sufficient processing time ahead of the annual June 1st deadline.
  4. The applicant is required to verify the building profile, list of meters associated to the building, and service address(es) for the building. LADWP will provide the requestor with their Property Admin ID number to access the building usage data through ESPM.
  5. Share meters and profile on ESPM with LADWP using the assigned Admin ID.
  6. Verify connection with LADWP is successful and automatic usage data is available on ESPM.
     
LADWP Benchmarking Application
Los Angeles Benchmarking Guide

Ongoing Benchmarking

If you requested data from LADWP for past reporting, you do not need to submit a new benchmarking application. Once the data feed is connected, LADWP provides automatic recurring updates to your property profile in the ESPM.

Under Division 97 of the Los Angeles’ Municipal Code (LAMC), you may have received a “Notice of Compliance” letter for the Existing Buildings Energy and Water Efficiency (EBEWE) program. To learn about annual benchmarking compliance instructions, view the Annual Benchmarking Compliance Guide. 

For more information, please refer to the Ongoing Reporting Guide.

Data for the past five years will be uploaded to your account, and you will need to update the date the meter became active to reflect the earliest date for which you now have data for your electric and water meters. This is important to ensure your metrics calculate properly. 
 

 

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