Seattle Public Libraries Utility Billing Analysis
Seattle, WA
A utility analysis of a major metropolitan library portfolio yields a novel approach to illustrate the range of savings across its diverse buildings
Seattle’s library branches serve as gathering and learning centers for all the major neighborhoods of the City. They are a diverse group of 21 buildings - 220,000 sf (total), varying widely in age and design. Before the merger of 360 Analytics and O’Brien and Company to form O’Brien360, 360 Analytics engaged O’Brien and Company to provide the Seattle Office of Sustainability with an analysis of operations and maintenance (O&M) measures implemented across this portfolio of buildings. To do this, 360 Analytics analyzed three years of monthly natural gas and electric utility bills for all sites and created basic
models that represent the weather normalized energy performance of each building before and after operational changes were made. The study was complicated by making O&M adjustments in conjunction with changes to building operation hours. However, 360 Analytics developed a novel approach to use available hourly energy interval data to account for this influence, effectively illustrating the range of savings for all buildings.