Why do I need the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager?
Most U.S.-based commercial real estate buildings are required to report monthly energy consumption to ENERGY STAR on an annual basis. Your building’s annual consumption is compared to buildings with similar profiles, then all buildings are ranked and given a score based on their energy efficiency. Some municipalities, such as Washington D.C. and New York, have started to penalize owners of buildings whose scores do not meet a certain threshold.
How does Aquicore work with ENERGY STAR?
Aquicore handles the data submission process for you. Instead of manually tracking down all of your utility bills from the past year (including from meters you don’t own, such as those controlled by tenants), or manually entering data into ENERGY STAR yourself, you can set up Aquicore to automatically sync your utility consumption to ENERGY STAR using the accurate, high-quality data that is already in the Aquicore platform.
Prerequisites
In order to take advantage of Aquicore's ENERGY STAR Integration, you must have an existing ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Online Account with properties and meters set up.
Aquicore currently supports a single Portfolio Manager account per Aquicore account. If you have multiple Portfolio Manager accounts, you must combine them or work with your Aquicore support representative to set up multiple Aquicore accounts for complete data sync.
Aquicore currently supports the syncing of any main utility meter, utility submeter, and utility bills that have meters on the bill to ENERGY STAR. Most (if not all) automatically synced bills are supported, but manually uploaded bills are not supported.
Let's get started!
Automate and streamline your ENERGY STAR submission process with Aquicore!
Setting up the ENERGY STAR & Aquicore Integration
Login to your Aquicore Account. Using the left-hand navigation, scroll down to the SETUP section and click 'Settings'. Select 'Integrations' and click 'ENERGY STAR".
Click 'Create Integration' and type in your Portfolio Manager Online username and password, then click 'Connect'.
You will then see a notice alerting you to add Aquicore as a contact
Go to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Online and log in to your account.
In the upper right-hand corner, select "Account Settings"
Click the tab "Software Development" and select 'yes' to use web services API, then click the 'Make Changes' button at the bottom of the page.
In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, click the "Contacts" tab, then click "Add New Contacts/Connections".
In the field "Name", search "Aquicore Service", then click 'Connect' next to 'Aquicore Service' on the list to the right.
(optional) Navigate back to your 'Contacts' to confirm you see the pending connection to Aquicore.
Switch back to the Aquicore window in your web browser and click "Verify" next to your login credentials - this will accept your contact request. You will see a notice alerting you to share your properties with Aquicore.
Sharing Properties
Switch back to the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Online window.
Navigate to the 'Sharing' tab and click 'Share with your Utility or Service Provider for exchanging data'.
Under 'Select Web Services Provider (Account)', use the drop-downs to select 'Aquicore Service'. Under 'Select Properties click 'Select Properties'. Choose the properties you would like to sync and click 'Apply Selection'.
Under 'Choose Permissions', select 'Bulk Sharing' and 'Exchange Data Full Access'. Then, click 'Authorize Exchange'.
Select 'Close' and verify that 'Aquicore Services' is in the shared properties table with the correct number of properties.
Switch back to the Aquicore window and click "Verify" or "Re-Verify". This step might take a few minutes to sync the properties you shared!
When you see "Successfully verified account" in green at the bottom right-hand corner of the page, you are now able to match up your Aquicore properties with the properties in your ENERGY STAR account.
Linking Properties & Meters
Under the "Actions" column, click the button that looks like a link on the far right of the property that you wish to connect.
The property at the left of the window shows the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager property you've selected. Click the "Aquicore Properties" dropdown on the right to see the properties you have online with Aquicore. Once you have used the drop-down list to match up the Aquicore Property to the ENERGY STAR Property, click 'Save & Continue'.
Under the 'Link Meters' section, select the meters you'd like to sync.
You will now be able to set the dates to “Start Data Sync” and “End Data Sync.” These dates indicate when Aquicore will send data from a certain data source to ENERGY STAR, and allow you to choose when to switch from metered data to bill data, or vice versa.
* Each Energy Star meter cannot have overlapping sync dates.
Click the Calendar icon for the calendar drop-down. Click the year to select a different year. Click "Save" once you have made your selections.
Once the sync is finished, you'll see "Successfully updated ENERGY STAR property" in green at the bottom right-hand corner of the page. The status of the property will also update to "Synced", confirming you have successfully completed syncing properties/meters and submitting your first batch of data!
Going Forward
Aquicore will take it from here! Your consumption data for the properties and meters you linked will be pushed to ENERGY STAR on a daily basis, and your score will be pulled back into Aquicore once ENERGY STAR completes its calculation. This happens once a month around the 15th.
Your most recent score can be viewed on your Property Overview page, as well as on a widget in your dashboard! Your score will also be reflected in your daily and monthly reports.
Data Sync
Aquicore sends new consumption data to Portfolio Manager after the end of the month (e.g. sends December data on Jan 1)
On a daily basis, Aquicore will check for any updates to consumption data, and update ENERGY STAR data accordingly for any discrepancies in the past 15 months
ENERGY STAR waits until the 15th of every month to use that usage data to update your score for the prior month.
For example, on March 15th, your February ENERGY STAR score will be calculated in Portfolio Manager online and then will immediately be reflected in your Aquicore platform.
Maintaining the Integration and Common Issues
Adding a new property or meter
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager will not automatically share new properties or meters to Aquicore, even if your account is configured to share All Properties with Aquicore. When adding a new property or meter to ENERGY STAR, you must repeat steps 10-20 above.
Deleting a property or meter
Deleting a Property or Meter from ENERGY STAR will not automatically remove it from Aquicore. You must re-verify properties in Aquicore to have the updates show (Steps 16-17 above).
Syncing from Utility Bills
In order for Utility Meters to be linked to ENERGY STAR meters, the utility provider must provide a breakdown of the bill by meter, and that meter must be mapped to a meter in Aquicore. Aquicore supports syncing utility bills that have meters on the bill to ENERGY STAR. Most (if not all) automatically synced bills are supported, but manually uploaded bills are not supported.
To link your utility bill's meter to a meter in Aquicore, Go to Utility Sync > Click on Utility Service > Meters > Match Utility Meters and make sure that there is a row for each Serial Number. Note: The meter must be marked as a “Utility Bill meter” in Devices & Collectors in order for it to be mapped here.
The green circled Serial Number will be able to be linked to ENERGY STAR, any other Serial Numbers on the bill will not.
If there is no existing collector that matches this Utility Meter, you can create a placeholder virtual meter under Devices & Equipment (or reach out to Aquicore Support for help).