Benchmarking turns the information on your utility bill into knowledge you can act on. The first step to saving energy at your building is to benchmark. This means you are going to measure and compare your building’s energy to similar buildings, the building’s past consumption, or a reference performance level.
Summary of requirements
What needs to be done?
- Submitting your Annual Benchmarking Report is a key part of complying with the Energize Denver program. This report shows whether your building is meeting its energy efficiency goals. You must submit your benchmarking report through the Energize Denver Management Portal.
- The city will review your benchmarking report to determine if you are in compliance. No additional documentation is needed to demonstrate compliance.
Who needs to do it?
- All buildings within the City and County of Denver that are 25,000 square feet and larger must submit their benchmarking information annually.
When it must be done?
- A building’s 2024 energy data must be submitted by September 1, 2025.
- In future years, your benchmarking report will be due on June 1.
Your Annual Benchmarking Report helps you:
- Track your building’s energy use.
- See if you're on pace to meet your energy efficiency target.
- Take action if your current Energy Use Intensity (EUI) is above your energy efficiency target(s).
Important: Many buildings are not benchmarked with enough detail to receive the correct energy efficiency target, so we’ve developed a new checklist to help you with this process. To help you get the right target, third-party data verification of your benchmarking report is required once in the next two years (by June 1, 2026).
Submit Your Annual Benchmarking Report - Link will be live on May 1, 2025.
Benchmarking Tools & Resources
Need to troubleshoot?
- Call the Energize Denver Help Desk: 844-536-4528 (Mon–Fri, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.)
- Email the Energize Denver Help Desk: energizedenver@denvergov.org
- In-person sessions available
See more about how the Energize Denver Help Desk can help you
Want more information about Benchmarking?
- Check out the high-level data from your previous benchmarking reports in the new Energize Denver Management Portal, going live on May 1, 2025
- See Section 4 of the Energize Denver Technical Guidance
Need someone to help you complete your benchmarking report?
- Find professionals who have completed our Benchmarking Training to support you.
Trained Service Providers List
Important Benchmarking Notes
State vs. City Reporting
- State law (HB21-1286) requires separate reporting for buildings 50,000 sq. ft. and larger.
- We will provide more information to buildings that have to comply with both requirements at a later date.
Privacy and Data Use
Compliance and Enforcement
- Reports with data quality issues will not be accepted until the errors are resolved.
- A $2,000 fine applies if the benchmarking report is not approved by September 1, 2025.
- Failure to resolve or pay a citation within 180 days may result in a property lien.
Detailed benchmarking will set an accurate energy efficiency score that your building will need to meet by the final target deadline.
The key steps to submitting a detailed Annual Benchmarking Report are:
- Log in or set up required building accounts
- Check building energy use details for accuracy
- Collect your energy use data
- Verify data quality and prepare your benchmarking data for submission through the Building Management Portal
- Submit your annual benchmarking report
- Repeat annually
- Conduct third party data verification by the end of 2026
Before you get started:
***NEW FEATURE*** new building management portal for easy submissions
How should I benchmark multiple buildings that share a meter?
When several buildings share one energy meter, they should benchmark together as a single building. This will let you take advantage of Xcel Energy’s automatic upload function. They will upload your monthly energy data into Energy Star Portfolio Manager for you. You can then benchmark your buildings at the level that makes sense for your strategy.
You may have good reasons to benchmark these shared-meter buildings separately. We encourage you to explore your options. You may want to benchmark these buildings separately if:
- You have separate electric meters but a shared gas meter.
- One building might have completed an upgrade while the other(s) have not
- You want to understand the energy performance of each building on its own.
If you have multiple buildings sharing both electric and gas meters, we urge you to consider sub-metering. This will help you better understand your energy usage. If you do not sub-meter the buildings, you must report the buildings as one account on ESPM.
If you are benchmarking multiple buildings together because they share a meter, please email energizedenver@denvergov.org. This way, we can update our covered buildings list.
How can I get whole-building data if energy meters are owned by tenants?
Xcel Energy offers monthly auto-upload of utility data into customers' ESPM accounts. For buildings with more than one account holder, Xcel Energy can provide aggregated whole-building data. The data can go straight to the building owner’s ESPM account through the auto-upload service. You don't need to provide additional documentation if:
- There are four or more Xcel Energy tenants in the building
- No one tenant uses more than 50 percent of the building’s total energy
If you meet one of these conditions, Xcel Energy's Energy Benchmarking User Guide can help you set up auto-upload. If your building does not meet the above criteria, you must request customer consent to use auto-upload. If you have access to tenant bills, you can enter monthly energy meter data by hand.
What can I do if one or more tenants will not release consent?
Start by confirming that you need consent. Consent is required from tenants if:
- There are three or fewer Xcel Energy tenants in the building
- One tenant uses more than 50 percent of the building's total energy
If you need consent and a tenant is refusing to provide it, there are some options:
- Provide more context. The building owner is legally required to benchmark annually. ESPM aggregates the energy use of all tenants to protect privacy. No specific proprietary information is reported. Benchmarking is a widely implemented practice in the United States. It is a proven way to reduce overhead costs related to energy use as well as improve the air quality within a community.
- Share the Ordinance and Rules
- Leverage current lease agreement terms. All leases contain basic language requiring tenants to abide by local laws and work with the owner to meet the legal requirements of the building or they could risk eviction.
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Update or establish “green leasing” agreements with tenants to set terms related to data sharing, data access, and or complying with City/State/Federal regulations.
How can I access meter data if I am not the building owner?
If you are not the building owner, Xcel Energy will need to:
- Verify that you have a relationship with the building owner.
- Get you authorized on the building owner’s Xcel Energy account at the property. This can be done by completing a consent form with the building owner as the customer of record.
The building owner can also contact Xcel Energy at 1-800-481-4700 and request to add you as an authorized contact.
Please reach out to the team at benchmarking@xcelenergy.com for help with your consent form.
How can I access whole-building data for my condominium building?
Xcel Energy will treat the condominium owner’s association as the property owner in these cases. Ensure the property manager/benchmarker is an authorized user on the Xcel account for the common areas. Consent might be needed by the HOA to release the energy data to the property manager or benchmarker. Please reach out to benchmarking@xcelenergy.com if you have any questions.
How do I request new or updated energy data to be uploaded into my ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager meters as an Xcel Energy customer?
In situations where you find the energy data is not up to date, missing data, or includes a meter that does not contain whole building data, please reach out to benchmarking@xcelenergy.com to address the issue. In your email, describe the issues you are experiencing, provide the property address(es), and the 7-digit ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Property ID(s).
How do I correctly enter the number of units in a low-, medium-, or high-rise setting for multifamily properties?
Most multifamily properties are categorized as one of the following:
- Low Rise (1-4 floors)
- Medium (5-9 floors)
- High (10 floors or more)
If a building has 11 floors, all units in that building are in a high-rise setting. If a building has eight floors, all units in that building are in a medium-rise setting. The only time a building would have units in more than one setting is if there are two parts of the same building that are of different heights. for example, one section is a high-rise tower and the other section only has three floors.
How should I benchmark a building with multiple uses, like a strip mall?
Strip malls or mixed-use buildings are generally benchmarked as one building. You should break out the different building types by square footage. You can get aggregated whole-building electricity and natural gas usage data from Xcel Energy. You do not need to collect energy usage information from individual tenants.
Special considerations for strip malls:
- If one strip mall falls on more than one parcel, as defined by the tax assessor, each parcel should benchmark as a separate building.
- If a driveway divides the strip mall on a single parcel into two distinct buildings, each of those buildings should benchmark separately.
- Individual retail stores within a strip mall may benchmark and report to the city as a separate building if it qualifies for an ENERGY STAR® score. In this case, the rest of the strip mall should still benchmark together. For example, if a grocery store in a strip mall is benchmarking independently, it should notify the owner of the strip mall. This way, the building owner can remove the energy use from the rest of the strip mall’s Benchmarking Report.
- Each building should use its own Denver Building ID. If the city only assigned one Denver Building ID to a property that will now benchmark as two separate buildings, you request an additional Denver Building ID.
What energy units do electric and gas meters need to be set to?
Units for electricity are kWh and units for gas are Therms for Xcel Energy gas customers.
How should I enter District Steam and Chilled Water?
If you get district steam and chilled water, Xcel Energy is not currently able to automatically transfer this data to Portfolio Manager for you. District steam and chilled water customers should configure their meters in Portfolio Manager as follows:
- District Service, Meter Type, Units
- Steam, District Steam, kLbs (thousand pounds)
- Chilled Water, District Chilled Water from an electric-driven chiller, ton hours
Note: Steam is billed by Xcel in Mlbs. This is the English system in which Mlbs means thousand pounds. This corresponds to kLbs in the metric system used by Portfolio Manager. Please make sure you select your units as kLbs in Portfolio Manager. The Mlbs option is metric and means million pounds. Do not select Mlbs in Portfolio Manager!
If you are a new District Chilled Water customer or are leaving the district system, you must notify the Energize Denver Help Desk at energizedenver@denvergov.org. We will need to add or remove a target adjustment for your final energy efficiency target.
How should I enter onsite solar or wind generation?
You will need to create an additional Electric Solar Meter or Electric Wind Meter. Then, you need to enter the production data for that system with that meter. Xcel Energy is able to automatically upload Electric Solar Meter data into Portfolio Manager. The meter should be set up the same way as your other auto-upload meters. They are not are not able to transfer the wind turbine data to Portfolio Manager. Your Xcel Energy billing statements will have the information you need to enter into ESPM. Xcel Energy will still transfer the electricity you purchased from the grid to the Electric Grid Meter in ESPM.
What if I make an error and need to resubmit my building information?
If your building is already in compliance and you realize you made an error in your submission and need to resubmit information, please call the Energize Denver Help Desk first at 844-536-4528. We must prepare our system to receive your new data, otherwise it will not register.
My property is mixed use and does not fit under one building use. How detailed should I be when entering my use details?
When benchmarking to normalize a building’s EUI target, we recommend entering Building Use Details as specific and granular as possible. Please add each use type that exists in your building, even if those spaces are under 5,000 sq. ft.
If you did not previously break out your high-intensity spaces you might need a Target Adjustment. This will ensure your energy efficiency targets accurately reflect your property.
The square footage or use details I previously reported were incorrect. What do I do?
- First you will want to update your property use(s), use details, and square footage in ESPM.
- Once your property is up to date in ESPM, you will need to resubmit the benchmarking report for the current year and historical years (if applicable). Contact the Help Desk before resubmitting.
- If your property types or square footage details changed from the data used to set your baseline EUI, you will need to submit a target adjustment application so that your targets can be corrected.