If you have a 10% off coupon for something that costs $100, you know you will be saving $10 – simple. Unfortunately determining energy savings is not so simple. Many variables impact how much energy a building needs day-to-day, making measuring and validating energy efficiency projects a headache for managers and decision-makers – enter IPMVP!
The IPMVP (International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol) was originally developed by the Efficiency Valuation Organization to help increase investment in energy and water efficiency, demand management, and renewable energy projects around the world. Today it has evolved into an international standard for calculating energy savings and is widely accepted across the globe. The model isolates external variables like weather, store hours, occupancy, equipment, and other behavioral changes to deliver the most accurate savings calculations using a site-to-self approach.
Temperature conditions change from year to year which makes simply comparing this year’s energy consumption to last year’s consumption inaccurate. One way to accurately measure a location’s energy savings after the deployment of an efficiency project is through weather normalization. In IPMVP, weather normalization is used to remove the impact weather has on your building by establishing a baseline. [Learn more about weather impacts here].
This video explains how IPMVP works, why other methods aren’t as accurate, and why GridPoint bases customer savings on this standard: