Annual Energy Benchmarking

Owners of all buildings over 15,000 ft2 in size are required to benchmark their energy use through the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager website. Submit your building’s benchmark report to comply with Berkeley’s Building Emission Saving Ordinance (BESO) and with California’s benchmarking program (required for buildings over 50,000 ft2). Review the BESO benchmarking status list to check your building’s compliance status.

Submit 2021 benchmark

Getting set up in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager

If this is your first time submitting benchmarking data, you will need to set up your building in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager site and input your energy use data.

Step one: Set your building up in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager

You will need to set up an account with Portfolio Manager to submit your benchmarking reports. For guidance, read our how-to guide or watch a video walk-through.

Step two: Gather and input your energy use data

• Option A: Enter manually
  If you have access to the monthly energy bills for each of the electric and gas meters for your building you can input these directly into Portfolio Manager.
• Option B: Set up an automatic data transfer from PG&E
  If your tenants have separate energy accounts, or if you prefer an automated option, you can use PG&E’s benchmarking portal. For help getting set up, use PG&E’s guide to set up your building in PG&E benchmarking portal and initiate the data transfer.

Review data and submit your report

Confirm your data is complete and accurate

To comply with City and State regulations, you are required to submit complete and accurate benchmark reports. Benchmark reports with errors will not be approved. Before submitting your report, please:

• Review the energy data
• Review the building characteristics
• Run the data quality checker

In addition, if you are using the PG&E data transfer, check for overlapping or missing data and correct any issues.

Report benchmarking data to the City

Once the energy use data has been inputted for the full calendar year into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager you can report the 2021 Benchmark through the 2021 BESO Benchmarking Data Submission link.

For detailed instructions use the following guide on How to Submit the 2021 Benchmark.

Additional benchmarking support

• Building owners can request assistance with the benchmark setup process. The BESO Team will contact you when assistance is available.
• Basic Portfolio Manager webinar and trainings
• BESO Registered Energy Assessors (Commercial, Multifamily & Mixed Use) may provide benchmarking assistance as part of their services  
• The BESO team can also provide an instructional document, on request, to help track your progress in the benchmarking process, along with limited assistance. Please email BESO@cityofberkeley.info for assistance.  

Benchmarking reporting links

• Submit 2021 benchmark data (due 7/1/2022)
• Submit 2020 benchmark data (due 7/1/2021)
• Submit 2019 benchmark data (due 7/1/2020)
• Submit 2018 benchmark data (due 7/1/2019)