28. Benchmarking Building Energy Management

This article examines issues related to benchmarking energy consumption in buildings by citing data based on field observations. There is an urgent need for developing such benchmarks for different cities in India and for different types of buildings. The authors propose the establishment of these benchmarks in both commercial and government buildings in various cities under the aegis of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). BEE can consider encouraging building owners to adopt energy conservation practices leading to voluntary compliance with such benchmarks, as has happened in the cement industry. Benchmarking of building energy consumption is highly desirable as there are an increasing number of commercial buildings such as office complexes, call centers, retail outlets, food joints, super bazaars, etc. All such buildings consume substantial amount of energy for air conditioning, lighting, escalators, computers, etc.