The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
have signed an agreement to work together on a project that analyzes energy use in commerical buildings. The goal is to harmonize both countries approach to measuring and assessing the amount of energy being used with a common platform. The EPA’s current Energy Star Portfolio Manager software will be further developed and adjusted to include data from Canada and the United States.
The Energy Star Portfolio Manager database currently has over 250,000 buildings, representing more than 27 billion square feet of commerical and institutional spaces in the United States. The database will be expanded to include information for all commerical and institutional buildings in Canada as well. Both governments then will have access to quanitifiable data on energy savings, greenhouse gas reductions and emissions levels, and other usefull information that will help both countries more toward a more stable, clean energy economy.
Planned improvements to the Portfolio Manager include a Canadian-based measurement standard, conversion of all data to metric units, Canadian reference data, and translation into both official languages of Canada.
“This agreement between EPA and NRCan is part of a broad commitment to working together on energy efficiency, an important element of cleaning the air and securing our energy future,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “We are glad that Canada selected EPA’s Portfolio Manager tool to support their national energy management program for existing commercial and institutional buildings, and we look forward to the benefits this new partnership will create for the health of our families, for our economy, and for our environment.”
