Benchmarking is the process of measuring a building’s energy use to understand its performance and identify opportunities to reduce building owners’ energy expenses.

The City of San Diego Climate Action Plan (CAP), adopted in 2015, calls for creating more energy-efficient buildings and ordinances to conserve and disclose energy use. In pursuing its CAP goals, the San Diego City Council passed the Building Energy Benchmarking Ordinance in February 2019. The ordinance requires commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet and multifamily and mixed-use buildings greater than 50,000 square feet and with 17 or more residential accounts to submit energy data to the City of San Diego in  ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®. Submissions are due by June 1 annually.

ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®  is an interactive resource management platform that enables you to benchmark the energy use of any type of building. It is a secure online tool that allows anyone to quickly understand how a building is performing based on the 1-100 ENERGY STAR® score. A score of 50 represents median energy performance, and a score of 75 or higher means the building is a top performer and may be eligible for ENERGY STAR® certification.