State of Oregon: Energy in Oregon

Actively managing energy in buildings can help organizations reduce energy use, save money, and create more comfortable and productive spaces.

What is Energy Management?

Organizational energy management is a continuous improvement process that adds value to an organization and its operations. An energy management program assesses building energy performance, identifies ways to improve, and establishes good energy use practices for continuous improvement.

Focusing on organizational energy use gives you more control and ability to reduce your operating costs, increase overall energy efficiency, and promote more sustainable and efficient operations.

Instead of reactive management, an energy management strategy is based on a proactive and well-coordinated effort to manage the resources and services used by your facilities.

A successful energy management program is a commitment and requires several key elements:

People: Your organization will need an energy manager or champion who has support from executive, administration, and facility staff. While not all organizations need a full-time position, success requires a dedicated commitment of time and resources (e.g., 0.25 FTE is a common threshold).
Policy & Planning: Effective energy management requires foundational policy and planning to guide the energy management process. This includes setting clear goals and action plans, with incentives to encourage action and regular communications to staff.
Taking Action: Once improvement opportunities are identified, your organization needs to be committed to making changes to facility equipment, operations, or practices. These improvements can vary, and may include low/no-cost retrofits, behavior change campaigns, or long-term capital investments. Once action has been taken, it is critical to track your progress and share your successes.

Assess, Act, Evaluate

All energy management programs follow the basic structure of Assess, Act, and Evaluate.

Assess

The primary goal of the assessment phase is to build an understanding of your current state and operations (commonly referred to as a “baseline”). This will typically involve data collection and analysis, assessment or audits, and evaluating the results against comparable peers or values. This process can help you understand current energy uses and practices, identify best opportunities for improvements, and establish reference points for future action. A commonly used data collection tool is ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager .

Act

After the assessment phase, you will need to develop a roadmap to improve your energy performance and meet the goals established by your energy management team. Use a detailed “Energy Action Plan” to establish the steps and processes needed to systematically meet your goals. The action plan will define technical and administrative steps and determine the roles and responsibilities for each step. Before moving forward, it is critical that your organization understands and agrees to the action plan.

Evaluate

As you implement your action plan, it is important to track and monitor your progress. Many action plans detail performance measures and metrics that can be reviewed and reported on regularly. As part of this evaluation, communicate successes and areas for further improvement to your organization. Regular evaluation will also provide measurements and results of your work and inform future actions and decisions for your organization.

Energy Management Tools & Resources

Saving Energy 101