Philadelphia Launches Online Energy Benchmarking Visualization Tool

The Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability has worked with local geospatial analysis firm Azavea to create a visual mapping tool for the results from the second year of Philadelphia’s energy benchmarking program for large commercial buildings. The result is a new user friendly web-based visualization platform.

The tool has two primary components:

— Mapping and Comparison: Building owners, managers, and tenants can find their building by searching for the property address or Office of Property Assessment ID number. After selecting a property, users can generate a report on the building’s benchmarking results and compare their status with up to three similar facilities around the city.

— Charts and Graphs: Users can see benchmarking data by building type, individual performance, and for facilities owned and operated by the City of Philadelphia through a series of interactive graphing functions over time.

The goal of Philadelphia’s benchmarking and disclosure policy is to improve building performance by making energy data in the city’s largest buildings transparent, easy to interpret and accessible to the public.

Like other cities, the Office of Sustainability made this data public via spreadsheet last fall. The new visualization tool represents the next step in opening building energy use data up to the widest possible audience.

The Sustainability Office also published the full report on Year Two energy benchmarking data. Among the key findings from this report:

— Philadelphia buildings eligible for the 1 to 100 ENERGY STAR score received an average rating of 58, eight points better than the national average.

— Universities and hospitals emit nearly half of the carbon emissions represented in the portfolio of properties reported, demonstrating the opportunity these sectors present to lead on climate change action.

— Outreach to building owners and operators is critical to drive action on building efficiency. The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability is committed to reach this audience through initiatives like the data visualization tool and the recently-launched Energy Reduction Race, which challenges Philly buildings to reduce their energy usage 5 percent over one year.

The full report is available online.

This work is supported by grant funding from the City Energy Project, a ten-city initiative to improve performance in America’s largest buildings.

For more information about Philadelphia’s energy benchmarking program, please contact the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability by sending email to: benchmarkinghelp@phila.gov.