Collect Energy Data

Back to Energy Benchmarking Requirements

You will need whole-building energy data from all energy meters supplying the building in order to benchmark properly in Portfolio Manager. This includes both common area and tenant meters. There are two ways to obtain your energy data:

• If you are the account holder of all your meters and all your energy data is available to you, you can collect your bills for manual input. (Portfolio Manager also provides spreadsheet upload options to easily upload one meter or multiple meters at the same time.)
• If you have tenants, you can request that they share/send their energy data to you for the purposes of benchmarking. Or, read below for information on requesting aggregated data from your utility/utilities.

You may request whole building, aggregate data from your utilities for benchmarking purposes. This service is most beneficial to building owners of buildings with 5 or more meters, particularly where tenants pay the utility bills, but can help save time from manually entering bill data for any building. 

• If you have 5 or more meters, you can request whole building/aggregate data without tenant authorization.
• If you have 4 or fewer meters, you can request data from your utility but must obtain authorization from tenants to obtain their energy data. Building owners will need to receive authorization from each tenant, which are available on each utility's energy benchmarking pages below.

Utility-Specific Information

• Pepco and BG&E customers can find information on getting their Pepco data at Pepco Energy Benchmarking or BG&E Energy Benchmarking. If you previously enrolled in whole-building data aggregation through Pepco’s Resource Advisor website, you must re-enroll in Pepco’s new Energy Usage Data System (EUDS) to set up electricity data aggregation and re-sync this feed to Portfolio Manager to continue to access whole-building electricity data. The basic steps are outlined here, specific to Pepco, but the process is similar for both utilities:
  • To request data, email the Energy Usage Data System (EUDS enrollment form) to Pepco. The form must list all service addresses associated with the property that will be included as part of the benchmarking reporting AND at least one known account or meter number at the property, such as the house meter, to verify these addresses. 
  • Pepco will process the enrollment form send a welcome email inviting you to verify your email and create a password for the EUDS platform.
  • Once in the EUDS platform, you will create a usage request and verify your tenants. Pepco will review your request.
  • Note that requests for aggregated consumption data on buildings with four (4) or fewer individually metered accounts will require the consent of each customer (Tenant Consent Form).
  • Once your request has been approved, you are then able to sync EUDS to Portfolio Manager so that data is automatically sent to Portfolio Manager. This syncing process will transfer the data historically and as new bills become available. 

• Washington Gas customers can find information on getting aggregated gas bill data at Washington Gas Energy Benchmarking. The basic steps are outlined here:
  • Set up your account at the Washington Gas Benchmarking Portal
  • Upload a list of all gas meter numbers servicing the building. The street address of the building is not acceptable.
    • Note: If the gas meters at the property are physically located inside each unit (e.g. a condo building with meters inside each unit or on the balcony
      of each unit only accessible via access to the unit), please email [email protected] to request a spreadsheet that can be sent to WGL to request a list of meter numbers.
  • You are then able to sync your Washington Gas data to Portfolio Manager so that data is automatically sent to Portfolio Manager. This syncing process will transfer the data historically and as new bills become available. Reference the Washington Gas user-guide (page 9 to 19) for detailed step-by-step instructions.

• Potomac Edison customers can find information on getting aggregated electricity data at the Benchmark Your Building portal.
  • The basic steps are outlined here:
    • Register with the FirstEnergy Benchmarking Tool. You must have your building set up in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager before registering. The Benchmarking Tool requires input of a Unique Building ID (UBID). This is not your Montgomery County Building ID. Please find the building's UBID from this list of UBIDs (XLS, 26 KB) or contact [email protected] for assistance.
    • Add a list of tenants. You can search by Account Number, Premise Number, or Premise Address. If there are fewer than five tenants in a particular building, then the building owner must request each tenant's written consent to allow Potomac Edison to provide energy data to the building owner or portfolio manager.
    • You must add FirstEnergy as a contact in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager and share your property and meters (see steps 5 and 6 in the Potomac Edison benchmarking user guide).  Please ensure that you are connecting with the Portfolio Manager account with username “FirstEnergy,” display name “FirstEnergy Supplier Services."
    • Create a usage request by entering the start and end date of the period you are reporting. Please note that you must update the usage request annually and will need to log into the benchmarking tool to create a new request each year.
  • If you have trouble accessing data or need support, contact [email protected]. 

Some utility providers (Pepco, Washington Gas, BG&E) provide data almost immediately after submitting the request, barring any data issues. Other utility providers typically complete requests within 10 business days. The turnaround time for data can be as long as 3-4 weeks from the date of request. The wait can be longer as we approach compliance deadlines. Building owners are encouraged to request their data early.