Revised standard helps compare building energy performance

ASHRAE has released the newly revised ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 105-2014, Standard Methods of Determining, Expressing, and Comparing Building Energy Performance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Announcing this through a communiqué, ASHRAE said the revised standard supports commonality in reporting the energy performance of existing or proposed buildings to provide a consistent method of measuring, expressing and comparing the energy performance of buildings.

According to ASHRAE, it also provides a common basis for reporting building energy use in terms of delivered energy forms and expressions of energy performance; for comparing design options; and for comparing energy performance in terms of energy resources used and greenhouse gas emissions created, both across buildings and for energy efficiency measures within buildings.

“A standard method of measurement is needed in order to be able to compare one building’s energy use to another,” Keith Emerson Chair of the Standard 105 committee, said.

The new edition of Standard 105 now includes procedures for going beyond site energy to calculate the impact of building energy use on primary (source) energy and greenhouse gasses, Emerson pointed out, and added, “To keep the standard flexible, a number of decisions are left to those who adopt it, including what should be calculated beyond site energy and the multipliers for those additional calculations.”

ASHRAE gave the following details of purchase: The cost of Standard 105-2014, Standard Methods of Determining, Expressing, and Comparing Building Energy Performance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, is $58 ($48 ASHRAE members). To order, contact ASHRAE Customer Contact Center at 1-800-527-4723 (United States and Canada) or 404-636-8400(worldwide), fax 678-539-2129, or visit www.ashrae.org/bookstore.