Linking to the Weather Data Depot in my previous post reminded me of another recently released free resource.  Several months ago, the California Energy Commissiong released the retrocommissioning toolkit on via the California Commissioning Collaboratives website. The toolkit includes a number of useful tools, but the one that came to mind in the context of the previous post is the utility analysis tool.  Here is a screen shot of the output generated by the tool as used for a recent project.

The arrangement of the spreadsheet allows you to  plot a normalized graph of average daily energy consumption almost faster than I can type this.  You simply enter billing dates and the consumption for the billing period and the spreadsheet takes care of the normalization process, including filling in for missing months.  Several years of data can be plotted for comparison along with other data that you want to contrast with consumption patterns.  In this case, I have plotted cooling degree days. The degree data came from the Weather Data Depot site I mentioned and was added to the chart using a table provided in the spreadsheet for just such a use.  I could have also plotted percent occupancy, rooms sold, central plant energy, or any other monthly information that I had available for comparison using the empty table.

The bottom line is that the tool make monitoring and analyzing your facilities energy consumption patterns a matter of a few simple key strokes.  For a discussion of ways to use this type of analysis to target commissioning and efficiency opportunities and help them persist, see Using Utility Bills and Average Daily Energy Consumption to Target Commissioning Efforts and Track Building Performance which is also available on the Commissioning Collaborative's web site.