Energy Transparency in Commercial Real Estate Transactions

• Goal: Improve buyer access to information about commercial building energy performance at the time of sale or lease.
• Scope: Develop and pilot an approach to integrating an energy assessment into the due diligence process, which assesses risk and value at the time of sale.

This project explores the cost, time, and optimal approach to delivering credible, actionable building information to owners at the time of sale. This information includes both current energy performance and future opportunities for operational improvement to increase asset value immediately post-acquisition.

This project is piloting two approaches, with the goal of recommending an approach that could be incorporated into the standard due diligence process. Both approaches incorporate ENERGY STAR benchmarking into the process. They are:

• Building Operations Survey - a building walk-through to evaluate the energy savings potential of assets and operations.
• Existing Building Commissioning (EBCx) Scoping - a building walk-through to evaluate the energy savings potential of assets and operations and develop cost and energy savings estimates for each opportunity found.

Partners:

• Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. (PECI)
• Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. (HMG)

Timeline: May 2009 - December 2011

Principal Investigator: Eliot Crowe, ecrowe@peci.org