Skip to Main Content U.S. Department of Energy
ARRA Building Retuning

Re-tuning Commercial Buildings Resources

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a number of useful resources to help re-tune commercial buildings:

Energy Charting and Metrics Tool plus Building Re-tuning and Measurement and Verification (ECAM+)

Note that the Microsoft Excelâ„¢ file is an Excel add-on file, please refer to the user guide for instructions on how to use it.

The Energy Charting and Metrics Tool is an add-on for Microsoft Excel® which was developed to facilitate analysis of data from building (energy and other data). The tool makes extensive use of Excel pivot tables. Some key features of ECAM+ include: creation of charts to help re-tuning, creation of schedules and day-type information to time series data; filtering data from months, years, days, day-type, day of week, day of month, occupancy, temperature binned weather data, pre/post comparisons after retrofits or retro-commissioning; normalizing data and creating metrics based on consumption or equipment; creation of various load profiles or scatter charts for data selected by the user; new additions to the PNNL re-tuning charts; and new modeling and verification (M&V) for meter data.

Energy Charting and Metrics Tool (ECAM) Webinar Series Content

The Energy Charting and Metrics (ECAM) Tool Webinar Series is a three-part series of presentations that provide detailed assistance with installation of the tool, show the capabilities of the tool in analyzing metered electrical and end-use data, and familiarize the user with the methodology and functionality of this tool. The first presentation is an introduction to ECAM that walks the user through the installation process, and then provides an example of how to pre-process a simple data file to make it compatible with ECAM input format. The second presentation offers a step-by-step walkthrough of how to process interval meter data and generate charts associated with interval meter data. The third presentation offers a step-by-step walkthrough for creating PNNL re-tuning charts and a brief overview of how to analyze those charts to identify opportunities to save energy and reduce energy cost. Recordings of the presentations are available here, along with two practice data files used in the presentations. Please note that the webinar series content was based off an older version of ECAM, and does not address the latest additions to ECAM+. Therefore, some charts generated when following the walkthroughs for the PNNL Re-tuning will be different, and the M&V portion of the tool is not addressed. Please see the updated user guide for details on these features.

Raw Data Examples for use in the Energy Charting and Metrics Tool (ECAM)

Energy Charting and Metrics Tool (ECAM) requires the data to be arranged in a certain format for analysis. The document (see the sidebar) takes an example raw data from one building automation system and walks through the process of preparing the data for ECAM building re-tuning analysis. This document is for examples where no pre-processing of data is required, only changing the arrangement of the data.

User's Guide to Pre-Processing Data in Universal Translator 2 for the Energy Charting and Metrics Tool (ECAM)

The Universal Translator (UT) is a tool that assists in processing and merging data that has non-uniform time intervals or is stored in multiple excel (csv) files. There are some instances where the building automation system will export each trend to its own "csv" file. For example, the data from an air handler will be exported to multiple files. If each trend has its own "csv" file, and the timestamps do not exactly match, then the Universal Translator can be used to merge the data to a uniform timestamp. The file format for import into the UT is "csv" and it exports files as "UTF." The user guide shows the user where to download the program (UT program) and gives examples of importing, merging, and exporting the data that is compatible with ECAM.

Interval Data Analysis with the Energy Charting and Metrics Tool (ECAM)

The interval data guide is written specifically for the analysis of whole building electricity interval data in ECAM. It gives a detailed walkthrough of running the data through ECAM, and gives examples of all of the charts that can be generated and analyzed through ECAM. These charts range from point history charts to three-dimensional energy profiles for a specific month of the year. The guide offers examples of good and bad operation of buildings based on the charts generated using ECAM. From this, the user will get a general idea of things to look for and correct in their building, and how the energy profile of the building changes with time.

Focus Areas

Contacts

Downloads