M-itech

Speed up the HVAC part of your energy audits

Baseline consumption, replacement measures, savings, payback and CO₂ for every HVAC unit: Optima produces the slowest part of an audit to quantify in minutes, with an hour-by-hour simulation.

What an energy audit needs on the HVAC side

An ASHRAE Level 1 or Level 2 audit must deliver, for every energy efficiency measure, a baseline consumption, annual savings, an implementation cost, a payback period and an emissions reduction. In a commercial or institutional building, HVAC units often carry the largest share of consumption, and they are also the slowest part to quantify correctly: the performance of a rooftop unit or a heat pump depends on outdoor temperature hour by hour, not on a single efficiency figure.

Optima does not do the audit. It does the HVAC part of the audit: from the inventory recorded during the site visit, it rebuilds each unit’s consumption, simulates the replacement measures and delivers the figures the audit report must contain. Envelope, lighting, processes, interpretation and sign-off remain the firm’s work.

What Optima covers in an audit, and what it does not

Covered by Optima

  • Inventory and baseline consumption of existing HVAC units
  • Replacement measures: heat pump, high-efficiency rooftop unit, dual-energy
  • Annual savings, payback period and CO₂ per measure
  • PDF report to attach to the audit report

Stays with the firm

  • Envelope, lighting, domestic hot water and processes
  • Zone-by-zone building modeling
  • Load calculation and sizing
  • Interpretation, final recommendations and audit sign-off

What the method accounts for

Baseline per unit

The annual consumption of each existing unit, rebuilt hour by hour, not a pro-rata split of the utility bill.

Performance curves

A heat pump’s COP and a unit’s capacity vary with outdoor temperature. Optima uses the real curves, not nameplate efficiency.

Local hourly weather

8,760 hours of real weather for the building’s location, capturing the cold and heat peaks that degree-days smooth out.

Actual tariffs

Upload a gas or electricity bill: current tariffs are extracted and applied to the baseline and to every measure.

How Optima fits into an audit mandate

01

Inventory the HVAC units

Make, model, capacity, year and operating costs of each unit recorded during the site visit.

02

Define the measures

For each unit, one or several replacement scenarios to compare against the equipment in place.

03

Optima simulates baseline and measures

A full year, hour by hour, with local weather, performance curves and actual tariffs.

04

Bring the results into the audit

Savings, payback and CO₂ per measure in a PDF, to attach to the report or carry into the measures table.

What you get for the audit

Baseline consumption per unit and per energy source
Annual dollar savings for each measure
CO₂ avoided per year, by energy source
PDF report per measure, ready for the audit appendix
Read the method: accounting for HVAC equipment in an energy audit

Frequently asked questions

Does Optima replace an energy audit?
No. An energy audit covers the envelope, lighting, domestic hot water, processes and HVAC systems. Optima handles the HVAC part: the baseline consumption of existing units, the replacement measures and their savings, payback and CO₂. The rest of the audit, its interpretation and its sign-off remain the firm’s work.
Which audit level does Optima apply to?
ASHRAE Level 1 and Level 2 audits, where energy efficiency measures must be quantified per unit with defensible accuracy, without building a whole-building model. For a Level 3 audit or a compliance model, Optima is used to screen the HVAC measures before detailed modeling.
How is a unit’s baseline consumption established?
Through an hour-by-hour simulation of a full year: real hourly weather data for the location, the unit’s performance curve (a heat pump’s COP varies with outdoor temperature, defrost included) and actual tariffs extracted from an uploaded bill. The baseline is then checked against the bills to validate the order of magnitude.
What does the report contain, and can it be attached to the audit?
Each analysis produces a PDF report: existing unit and compared scenarios, consumption per energy source, annual dollar savings, payback period and CO₂ avoided, with the tariff and weather assumptions. It attaches as is to the audit report, measure by measure.

Try Optima on an audit in progress

Demo on one of your buildings: HVAC inventory, replacement measures, figures ready for the report.