The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) – together with the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO, the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), the National League of Cities (NLC), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – announced the launch of the SEED Collaborative, a strategic effort to assist state and local governments manage, standardize and share large building performance data sets.
This new collaboration builds on the success of DOE’s well-established software application called the Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) Platform™, one of the tools in the Better Buildings toolkit that allows cities and states to streamline the complex and difficult process of managing and standardizing building energy data.
“The SEED Collaborative is another example of what State Energy Offices can achieve with their local government, private, and federal partners,” said David Terry, executive director of the National Association of State Energy Officials. “This effort takes the data conversation out of the abstract and provides a platform for states to continue to innovate by effectively managing and comparing building energy consumption and the efficacy of efforts aimed at improving the efficiency in the institutional and commercial building stock.”
The SEED Collaborative will create a three-year partnership with the state, regional, and local governments to help them collect, clean, and manage data from different sources across large building portfolios, helping these jurisdictions save money and time as they handle more and more data.
Through the Collaborative, DOE will work with each of these partnering organizations to provide additional technical support and other services to complement how cities and states are using the SEED Platform and tracking and analyzing building energy data. These services include helping partner cities with initial setup of the SEED Platform, ongoing technical assistance, business process support, free hosting services, and access to a peer community of users and developers to share feedback and solutions.
Cities and states that join the SEED Collaborative agree to use the SEED Platform and work the DOE team to establish work plans to help implement benchmarking and building performance tracking programs. Partners will participate in monthly meetings, provide input on software enhancements, and share success stories and lesson learned.
For more information please visit here or contact Todd Sims at tsims@naseo.org.