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This guide explains the benefits and process of building commissioning thereby providing owners and other stakeholders a tool to improve building efficiency and operation. It is intended to be a resource, as well as a call to action, for building owners and facility managers who want to verify their buildings are not only operating as originally intended, but also as efficiently as possible. Commissioning of new construction and major renovations is the primary focus, although commissioning of existing buildings is also briefly discussed as well.

A brief introduction to Operations and Maintenance, the potential energy savings involved, and referral to the O&M Best Practices guide.

This guide provides an overview of the different energy audit options available and information on how to select an energy auditor.

This guide describes the benefits offered by energy service companies (ESCOs) and the things to consider when selecting and contracting with your provider. The appendix document is also available and contains solicitation and contracting samples.

This report provides an overview of the key elements of submetering and associated energy management systems to foster an understanding of the many potential benefits and complexities associated with use of these systems. While submeters by themselves have no direct impact on resource use, the data they capture informs real-time energy and water performance, can pinpoint performance variations over time or relative to other buildings, feeds into building automation systems that drive continuous operational improvements, and provides the information needed to encourage behavioral and operational changes by building operators and occupants.

This report describes miscellaneous electric loads (MELs), the assessment and monitoring of building loads, and how to implement a MEL reduction strategy in lodging facilities.

These appendices contain solicitation and contract samples for working with energy service contractors (ESCOs) and go with the previously published, "A Guide to Performance Contracting with ESCOs".

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program (BTP) evaluated a number of control strategies that can be implemented in a controller, to improve the operational efficiency of the packaged air conditioning units. The two primary objectives of this research project are: 1) determine the magnitude of energy savings achievable by retrofitting existing packaged air conditioning units with advanced control strategies not ordinarily used for packaged units and 2) estimating what the installed cost of a replacement control with the desired features should be in various regions of the U.S. This document reports results of the study.

Miscellaneous electrical loads (MELs) are building loads that are not related to general lighting, heating, ventilation, cooling, and water heating, and typically do not provide comfort to the building occupants. MELs in commercial buildings account for almost 5% of U.S. primary energy consumption. On an individual building level, they account for approximately 25% of the total electrical load in a minimally code-compliant commercial building, and can exceed 50% in an ultra-high efficiency building such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Research Support Facility (RSF). Minimizing these loads is a primary challenge in the design and operation of an energy-efficient building. A complex array of technologies that measure and manage MELs has emerged in the marketplace. Some fall short of manufacturer performance claims, however. NREL has been actively engaged in developing an evaluation and selection process for MELs control, and is using this process to evaluate a range of technologies for active MELs management that will cap RSF plug loads. Using a control strategy to match plug load use to users' required job functions is a huge untapped potential for energy savings.

This series of fact sheets was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hospital Energy Alliance. These fact sheets help hospital and healthcare institution owners and operators use effective, energy-efficient technologies and practices to decrease energy consumption and its related costs and to address energy-related environmental issues. Each fact sheet covers a particular area of potential savings in healthcare facilities and includes one or more hospital case studies: Building Envelope Fact Sheet, Boilers Fact Sheet, Chillers Fact Sheet, CHP Fact Sheet, Existing Building Commissioning Fact Sheet, Energy Management Program Fact Sheet, Fast Paybacks Fact Sheet, Ground Source Heat Pumps Fact Sheet, HVAC Fact Sheet, Integrated Building Design Fact Sheet, Lighting Fact Sheet, Plug Loads Fact Sheet, Water Efficiency Fact Sheet.