Commercial Energy Assessments

A commercial energy audit will help you gain invaluable information about your facility’s performance and how it consumes energy. A good audit can often produce 10-40% energy savings and a ROI of 15% or more.

Our process

We offer multiple levels of energy audits following ASHRAE Standard 211, which defines the scope and practice for conducting energy audits Level 1 through 3. With over 15 years of experience conducting energy audits of all levels, and for clients with facilities of all sizes and types, Sheehan Engineering has the expertise to optimize your operations.

There are four levels of energy assessments that we offer, and each level is additive with the level that precedes it. Every energy audit report includes the following items at a minimum, but the level determines the technical rigor:

An overview of your facility’s physical characteristics, inventory of energy consuming equipment and systems, and a narrative on their condition and operations.
Historic energy consumption analysis, to identify seasonal and annual trends.
Energy end-use analysis, to identify how your facility uses energy.
Utility rate structure analysis, to identify the appropriate rate to apply to energy savings and thus determining your cost savings.
Opinions of construction costs, to identify the magnitude of investment required to implement various energy conservation measures (ECMs).
A ranked list of all energy conservation measures according to their potential economic return on investment.

Benchmarking is the first step in understanding how, at the macro level, your facility is performing.
Our energy benchmarking services can go beyond basic municipal ordinance compliance to help you understand how your facility performs against its peers, and can offer the first glimpse at how much energy and operational cost savings may be available.
The goal of a Level 1 audit is to identify low and no-cost ECMs through interviews with site operations staff, an on-site field investigation, and an in-depth utility bill analysis.
A Level 1 energy audit report will, in addition to identifying low and no-cost ECMS, include a prioritization list of all feasible ECMs to help guide you on the scope of further investigations.
A Level 2 audit builds upon the findings of a Level 1 audit and includes more detailed projected energy cost savings and the cost to implement each ECM. Some degree of energy modeling is performed, typically at the ECM-level, in conjunction with developing opinions of construction costs.
To obtain this information, we’re often onsite for multiple days and review as much existing technical information that’s available, including as-built drawings and building automation system reviews.
A Level 2 energy audit report will include all economically feasible ECMs according to your financial and economic constraints to help justify the implementation of an energy project to all decision makers.
A Level 3 audit is also known as an Investment Grade Energy Audit, and is the most rigorous. The goal is to offer the highest level of confidence in an energy improvement project, especially if external financing is being pursued.
Existing utility consumption data is oftentimes supplemented with enhanced data gathering exercises through BAS trend logging, equipment data logging, etc. A whole building energy model, in addition to energy modeling of specific ECMs, is performed and finely calibrated to historic building operations.
We will also leverage our industry partners to assist with highly detailed cost estimating and constructability considerations, to ensure that our recommendations will lead to a successful project.