Energy Benchmarking in Illinois

Energy benchmarking is the first step to identifying opportunities to reduce energy use and save on utility bills.


Energy benchmarking means tracking a building’s annual energy and water use by using a standard metric to compare the building’s current performance against past performance, and to similar buildings both locally and nationwide. These comparisons help building owners, operators, and managers to identify and implement energy efficiency opportunities, increase occupancy rates and property values.

What is benchmarking? 

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Energy and water benchmarking are valuable processes for both building owners and occupants to better understand and quantify how their buildings are using resources such as energy and water. It can be used to compare energy and cost performance year-over-year, compare to similar buildings, and to better identify when a property is underperforming. Reviewing your benchmarking data, after ensuring its accuracy, will allow you to understand where there is opportunity to improve performance. 


Who is required to do this? 

Benchmarking requirements vary across the state of Illinois. Currently, energy and water use benchmarking is required for buildings over a specific square footage in Chicago, Evanston, and Oak Park. For more information on benchmarking requirements in your community, please read below. However, anyone can participate in voluntary benchmarking. 

 

Who CAN benchmark their building? (voluntary benchmarking) 

  • Anyone can benchmark their building 
  • Someone that is knowledgeable about the building and is able to collect information and get an ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager account started 
  • Someone who can acquire access to whole building utility data


What resources are available? 

How do you do benchmark? 


Building owners are required to track the energy and water usage for their building(s) using the U.S EPA’s ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager and report that data on an annual basis. 

To get started with benchmarking, the following resources will be useful references: 

City of Chicago Benchmarking Requirements

Review the City of Chicago's energy and water benchmarking requirements, learn how to benchmark, and find resources.

Learn more

City of Evanston Benchmarking Requirements

Review the City of Evanston's energy and water benchmarking requirements, learn how to benchmark, and find resources.

Learn more

Village of Oak Park Benchmarking Requirements

Review the Village of Oak Park's energy and water benchmarking requirements, learn how to benchmark, and find resources.

Learn more

Find an Energy Benchmarking Service Provider

The Building Energy Resource Hub maintains an online directory of companies that offer fee-for-service support for energy benchmarking, data verification, and other efficiency efforts. The Hub created the directory to help interested buildings find firms that provide benchmarking-related services.


As a reminder, the municipal ordinances do not require covered buildings to hire outside support to maintain compliance. 

If you've already benchmarked, refer to the Energy Efficiency Checklist.


If you are in Ameren territory, you can access your building data through the Benchmarking & Energy Efficiency Portal. The user guide is here. 

If you are in North Shore gas territory, you can access your building data through their Energy Information System. 


This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Building Technologies Office Award Number DE-EE0010930. (DOE-ELEVATE-0010930-12)


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