Enabling Detailed Energy Analyses via the Technology Performance Exchange

A key tenet to increasing adoption of energy efficiency solutions in the built environment is improving confidence in energy performance. Industry currently uses predictive modeling, often via detailed hourly or sub-hourly energy simulation programs, to account for site-specific parameters (e.g., climate zone, hours of operation, and space type) and arrive at a performance estimate. Such methods are highly precise; however, they invariably provide less than ideal accuracy because high-quality, foundational energy performance input data are lacking. The Technology Performance Exchange™—a free, publically accessible Web-based portal—was constructed to allow the transparent sharing of foundational, product-specific energy performance data. It leverages significant external engineering efforts and a modular architecture to agnostically identify and codify the minimum information necessary to accurately predict product energy performance and represents a novel solution to the problem mentioned above. Additionally, by translating contributed foundational data into energy modeling syntax, the Technology Performance Exchange provides an actionable and concrete resource, allowing energy modelers to improve model accuracy, drive energy efficiency decisions, and reduce development time and cost. This paper (1) presents a high-level overview of the project drivers and the structure of the Technology Performance Exchange; (2) offers a detailed examination of how technologies are incorporated and translated into energy modeling syntax; and (3) examines several ways that this workflow translates energy performance data into actionable energy savings.