Measurement and Verification
Track Actual Building Performance to Manage Operational Problems
Measurement and verification, or M&V, can help managers discover and manage maintenance and operating problems over time, document actual building performance, provide useful information for budgeting purposes, and assist with carbon reporting. Bolder Energy can provide M&V services or M&V review services for utility programs, LEED projects, performance contracts and other energy projects. Our approach follows the International Performance Measurement & Verification Protocol (IPMVP), but is customizable to meet individual client needs.
Benefits of Measurement and Verification
The M&V process involves establishing an energy performance baseline, and the subsequent measurement of the energy efficiency upgrade’s post-retrofit operation and energy performance, to verify the energy savings estimated during the auditing process. M&V can be useful in the following ways:
Measurement and verification, or M&V, can help managers discover and manage maintenance and operating problems over time, document actual building performance, provide useful information for budgeting purposes, and assist with carbon reporting. Bolder Energy can provide M&V services or M&V review services for utility programs, LEED projects, performance contracts and other energy projects. Our approach follows the International Performance Measurement & Verification Protocol (IPMVP), but is customizable to meet individual client needs.
Benefits of Measurement and Verification
The M&V process involves establishing an energy performance baseline, and the subsequent measurement of the energy efficiency upgrade’s post-retrofit operation and energy performance, to verify the energy savings estimated during the auditing process. M&V can be useful in the following ways:
- Increase energy savings through proactive adjustments in facility operations and maintenance: A good M&V plan helps managers discover and manage maintenance and operating problems so they can run their facilities more effectively, improve savings, achieve greater persistence of savings over time, and lower variations in savings.
- Document financial transactions: For some projects, the energy efficiency savings are the basis for performance-based financial payments and/or a guarantee in a performance contract. A well-defined and implemented M&V plan provides the recommended basis for documenting performance in a transparent manner that can be subject to independent, third-party verification.
- Collect good feedback: through M&V for future projects.
- Enhance financing for efficiency projects: A good M&V plan increases the transparency and credibility of reports regarding the outcome of efficiency investments.
- Manage energy budgets: Even if savings are not planned, M&V techniques help managers evaluate and manage energy use to account for variances from budgets.
- Enhance the value of emission-reduction credits: Accounting for emission reductions provides additional value to efficiency projects. Use of an M&V plan to determine energy savings improves the accuracy and reliability of emissions-reduction reports. Once documented, those reductions could possibly be sold in carbon markets, providing an opportunity to recover some portion of M&V and other project costs.
