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How to Benchmark Your Facility

Energy benchmarking is the collection, analysis and reporting of data to provide industrial companies with a context for assessing comparative energy efficiencies. Using energy more efficiently helps your business improve its productivity and bottom line, making it more competitive, while reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Energy benchmarking and monitoring allows your company to identify deficiencies and adopt better practices.

Energy Performance Benchmarking

Energy performance benchmarking focuses on a comparative analysis of energy use per unit of physical production, otherwise known as energy intensity.

Typically, the steps involved in energy performance benchmarking are:

1. Determine your facility's energy intensity by fuel type. Our energy calculator will make the job easier.
2. Compare your energy intensity with that for your industrial sector. Refer to the benchmarking reports available for a growing number of industrial sectors through the CIPEC benchmarking initiative. You may also want to refer to the sector energy data available through the Canadian Industrial Energy Efficiency Data and Analysis Centre (CIEEDAC), at Simon Fraser University and supported by Natural Resources Canada.
3. Access the tools and resources available that will help you improve your facility's energy performance.
4. Select your CIPEC task force to obtain additional information specific to your sector.

Energy Best Practices Benchmarking

Best practices benchmarking involves comparing operations and systems within your facility to best in class operations. Generally, the steps involved in energy management and technological best practices benchmarking include:

1. Identify the areas for improvement that will benefit most from the benchmarking study.
2. Research and identify the key factors and variables you will use to measure the above.
3. Determine if the data is already available or how it will be obtained.
4. Analyse the data and identify the best practice/performance by selecting the best-in-class category (e.g., companies that perform each function at the lowest cost, with the highest energy efficiency).
5. Determine the conditions under which the best practices can be achieved and specify the action(s) that must be taken to achieve the desired results.
6. Implementation:
   • Set specific improvement targets and deadlines.
   • Develop a continuous process to monitor, review and update the data and subsequently analyse over time. This will provide a basis for the monitoring, revision and recalibration of the measurements for future benchmarking studies.