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To learn more about calculating energy use intensity, developing metrics and analyzing both for clients and their facilities, contact Vice President and Facilities Practice Lead Brad Perrott, P.E., LEED AP®, GGP, EMP, at bperrott@hanson-inc.com or Assistant Vice President and Commissioning and Energy Discipline Manager Wade Conlan, P.E., CxA, BCxP, LEED® AP BD+C, at wconlan@hanson-inc.com. | ||
We live in a digital, data-driven society. It has been said that “data is the new soil” — meaning that it is a rich, fertile medium, it’s worthless unless curated and it’s durable and reusable. Buildings and their systems on airport campuses offer a wealth of data; however, data is useless without critical review and analysis.
For many airport energy managers, the most important metrics relate to energy consumption and demand. Energy baselines should be developed for their airport facilities, if they have not been already established. Hanson’s team has been assisting the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority with developing a multiphase energy management plan (EMP) that will help it establish a roadmap for building a sustainable energy program at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The EMP:
- pinpoints existing and future energy needs
- reveals how the authority can address its electrical utility challenges and improve the reliability of its systems
- identifies energy saving measures and alternative energy sources to reduce energy usage and costs in support of the airport’s future growth and sustainability program
- develops an approach to track, audit, assess and report on energy and sustainability performance
Six steps to an energy baseline
The International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 50001:2018: Energy Management Systems — Requirements With Guidance for Use requires energy baselines be developed and defines these six steps:
- determine boundaries: building, campus, business sector, etc.
- establish the baseline period, which is typically one year
- gather energy data (demand and consumption) by fuel source and create an energy balance per building
- determine factors heavily influencing energy consumption
- calculate energy use intensity (EUI)
- track and report progress
Developing an accurate baseline of energy usage is critical and should subdivide the demand and consumption between the various loads in the facility. Recent editions of the most adopted energy codes and standards (ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2025: Energy Standard for Sites and Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings and the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code) include requirements for submetering to help identify this data. Once developed, the most common baseline metric is EUI, calculated as the annual building energy use (measured in kBtus) divided by the total gross area of the building (measured in square feet).
The accuracy of the energy baseline is important in benchmarking against peer facilities. All the commonly used benchmarking tools employ facilities’ EUIs in some capacity. These include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Energy Asset Score. These tools help to compare the energy performance of similar facilities.
Follow the roadmap to resiliency
However, airport facilities are a combination of many typical building energy usage profiles. While there is not a formalized methodology for overall airport benchmarking, the Airport Cooperative Research Program’s Research Report 260: Airport Energy Resiliency Roadmap identifies one such methodology for developing airport terminal building EUI. Hanson assisted with developing the report’s recommended approach, which requires benchmarking various zones and terminal systems, then summing the overall EUI. For zones where data is available, the benchmarking system recommends comparing airport zones such as food and retail to comparable building types for a localized reference, like the method used in Energy Star.
