To smooth integration of Haystack tagged sites into Energy Star Portfolio Manager, I would like to propose the following tags for site entities:

• yearBuilt: Number type for year the building was built (or we could do just built as Date?)
• occupancyPercentage: Number with percent unit
• primaryFunction: Str enumeration (values come straight from Energy Star spec and listed below)

There are some other tags for federal properties, agencies, etc. But not sure all that stuff makes sense to suck in. But I think the tags above would be really good general purpose tags to include.

Comments? If you like it would you vote for yearBuilt (Number) or just built (Date)?

Enum for primary function:

Adult Education
Ambulatory Surgical Center
Aquarium
Automobile Dealership
Bank Branch
Bar/Nightclub
Barracks
Bowling Alley
Casino
College/University
Convenience Store with Gas Station
Convenience Store without Gas Station
Convention Center
Courthouse
Data Center
Distribution Center
Drinking Water Treatment & Distribution
Enclosed Mall
Energy/Power Station
Fast Food Restaurant
Financial Office
Fire Station
Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym
Food Sales
Food Service
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
Hotel
Ice/Curling Rink
Indoor Arena
K-12 School
Laboratory
Library
Lifestyle Center
Mailing Center/Post Office
Manufacturing/Industrial Plant
Medical Office
Mixed Use Property
Movie Theater
Multifamily Housing
Museum
Non-Refrigerated Warehouse
Office
Other - Education
Other - Entertainment/Public Assembly
Other - Lodging/Residential
Other - Mall
Other - Public Services
Other - Recreation
Other - Restaurant/Bar
Other - Services
Other - Stadium
Other - Technology/Science
Other - Utility
Other
Other/Specialty Hospital
Outpatient Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy
Parking
Performing Arts
Personal Services (Health/Beauty, Dry Cleaning, etc)
Police Station
Pre-school/Daycare
Prison/Incarceration
Race Track
Refrigerated Warehouse
Repair Services (Vehicle, Shoe, Locksmith, etc)
Residence Hall/Dormitory
Restaurant
Retail Store
Roller Rink
Self-Storage Facility
Senior Care Community
Single Family Home
Social/Meeting Hall
Stadium (Closed)
Stadium (Open)
Strip Mall
Supermarket/Grocery Store
Swimming Pool
Transportation Terminal/Station
Urgent Care/Clinic/Other Outpatient
Veterinary Office
Vocational School
Wastewater Treatment Plant
Wholesale Club/Supercenter
Worship Facility
Zoo

I like yearBuilt (number)

Everything else looks great

yearBuilt is great.

occupancyPercentage is on the right track however I would like to see that become a historised point. Being biased from my local market our energy rating system takes into account occupancy changes throughout the year and accounts for energy use accordingly so for us it is important that this information is captured. Maybe this is accommodated in the existing framework and I haven't thought about it properly, but to me this is a historised site point.

primaryFunction again I think this is on the right track. The only thing I'm wondering about is if it's too simple to have every building classed as one use. Perhaps I'm over-thinking it, in fact I can guarantee I'm thinking about it too much :) but I feel this should be adopted now and reviewed in due course.

Cheers, Richard

Great idea! Richard, with Energy Star here in the states, buildings are forced to pick a single function. If a building is 60% office and 40% warehouse, it is an office. It hurts the Energy Star rating of some facilities, because the loads are different than they would be in a pure office environment.

I am in agreement with all of the proposed tags above, with the exception of primaryFunction. In this case, the tag name is fairly generic, but means a very specific thing (EnergyStar.gov's Primary Function Enum). I would suggest that tags specific to Energy Star be prefixed with a unique identifier for this standard. For example: esr_primaryFunction (rating name) or epa_primaryFunction (organization).

I support the proposed tags, year built is probably better as it is more specific.

I do have serious concern for the Energy Star categorizations. My concern is for the impact various use combinations will have on any performance calculations undertaken. For instance a building designated as office but having only 60 % office and 40 percent warehouse if compared with another building with 80% office but with 20% High level Laboratory. Each would show up as office but energy use would be very different. I don't believe that the Energy Star designations were intended to be used for the purposes Haystack is promoting its use. The actual use split is important for Haystack's intended or potential use. I don't at the moment have a better alternate just now but maybe someone can suggest one.

Okay sounds like yearBuilt is something everyone likes.

In this case, the tag name is fairly generic, but means a very specific thing (EnergyStar.gov's Primary Function Enum).

I am proposing this tag not specifically for Energy Star, but rather as a Haystack tag in its own right to model what a building's primary function is. That seems like a generally useful thing to know whether you are using Energy Star or not right? I really like the idea of having that categorization. But if you are going to create a tag like that, why not just use what Energy Star has already defined? It looks like a really good list to me.

The only thing I'm wondering about is if it's too simple to have every building classed as one use.

Regarding the comments that a building might not have just one primary function, yeah that is true. But it is sort of a pedantic issue. Most buildings are pretty easy to classify, so we don't need to design something complicated for the special 5% case. It is sort of the same with the area tag - square footage of the building can be classified a billion different ways, but in general its nice to just have a simple general purpose single area tag (not that it stops you from modeling area with a more precise set of additional entities and tags).

Brian,

I'm alright with primaryFunction as a tag in that context. I guess I just got tunnel vision with the Energy Star thing.

Regarding multi-purpose buildings, they are more common than you might think, but a site-level primary function is usually definable. What would be even more useful, however, would be defining a primaryFunction tag on a zone/space record, when that becomes part of the full standard.

Actually I really like that. You have overall general/simplistic area/primaryFunction tags on the site entity. But then you can use those tags on zone/space entities for more specific modeling.

Any more comments on this topic?

I feel like we have consensus on primaryFunction and yearBuilt, so I will go ahead and add those unless I hear further comments.