Updates to ENERGY STAR® Metrics for Hospitals

Summary: 1-100 ENERGY STAR score for U.S. hospitals to be updated on Feb. 22, 2021

The 1-100 ENERGY STAR score for U.S. hospitals is being updated to reflect new market data from 2015 collected by the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE). It replaces prior data from 2008. While the score change for each hospital will depend on a number of factors unique to that property, the average score change for U.S. hospitals in Portfolio Manager will be an increase of 1.4 points, and ~95% of hospitals will experience score changes ranging from -2 to +5 points.

When the updates take place, they will apply to all historical calculations in Portfolio Manager, so if you wish to document your pre-update scores, you should do so no later than February 20. Please note that Portfolio Manager will be unavailable on February 21 while EPA conducts the software release, so be sure to plan to save reports before this date. Otherwise, you do not need to input any additional information for your updated score to be calculated. When you first log in to Portfolio Manager on or after February 22, you will see the updated scores for your properties, which reflect a comparison to other hospitals using the most recent industry data available.

What changes can I expect?

The average score change for U.S. hospitals in Portfolio Manager is an increase of 1.4 points, and ~95% of hospitals will experience score changes ranging from -2 to +5 points. The chart below shows the full distribution of expected score changes.

The primary change with this update is the addition of heating degree days (HDD) to the scoring model. Users will not need to input any additional information, as Portfolio Manager will automatically calculate this value based on the hospital’s address. This approach was found to more accurately score buildings across the full range of building heating requirements.

For questions about the scoring change, or for help with benchmarking, contact Ecom-Energy today.