Real Estate Energy Reporting
Background
The post-COVID changes in tenant occupancy and the looming legislative requirements to reduce emissions have challenged owners of commercial real estate portfolios to rethink what they need to know about their commercial buildings.
At Cortex we worked to provide a way for building owners to evaluate buildings on a level playing field. This project is the initial phase of ongoing work to provide real estate portfolio managers data they need to meet future challenges.
I was instrumental in developing the approach that enabled CRE portfolio managers to compare buildings fairly based on energy efficiency.
Understanding What Commercial Real Estate Leaders Need
I collaborated with Sales and Customer Success teams to interview industry leaders and understand their reporting needs. I led the exploration into how data could be presented, using energy intensity and cost per square foot as key performance indicators.
Buildings differ in age, equipment, occupancy, weather, and other factors, making performance comparisons difficult. Industry standards exist but lack the month-to-month granularity needed for actionable planning.
Solutions
My team explored many options to how data could be presented and determined that leveraging the concepts of energy intensity and cost per square foot were most effective at communicating how buildings use energy.
The design also needed to factor in different billing cycles, portfolio sizes, and incomplete data.
Portfolio-Level Reporting
Portfolio managers want to know which buildings perform well/not well within a defined date period. Their reporting view highlights buildings that are using a high energy cost per square foot allowing the to quickly determine if buildings are out of normal ranges or out of budgeted cost ranges.
Filtering by date range aligns with how they traditionally analyze the portfolio.
After a building is identified as a potential high energy cost property additional exploration can review the reasons why. At this point, users need to look at details about the building to learn more.
Once a high-cost building was identified, further detail helped uncover underlying causes.
Building-Level Reporting
Building level detail reporting enables users to dive into the reason why individual buildings are performing they way they are.
Building level details provides details about actual and expected consumption and costs. It helps identify if the building is out of the expected range for the buildings location, current upgrades, weather, etc.
Building consumption comparison
Details about energy consumption along with comparing to past similar periods helps users determine if there are circumstances that cause a building to be out of range.
Enabling better insights and planning
On their own, each user ended up being armed with better analysis tools. Taken as a whole, the customer organization was equipped with a full suite of reporting that gave them the ability to see issues sooner and plan for the future better.
