WATER BENCHMARKING OF COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

You’ve likely reached this webpage because you received a letter from the New Jerseys Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) advising you of a requirement under the New Jersey Clean Energy Act’s Energy and Water Benchmarking Law. The Law requires you to report water usage for your commercial building(s) to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, via their Energy Star Portfolio Manager (ESPM) tool. This webpage will assist you in providing the water usage data necessary for you to comply. 

Please note that the Benchmarking program is administered by the NJBPU and any questions about the program should be directed to the NJ Benchmarking Help Center at benchmarking@bpu.nj.gov. For more details on the program, the BPU directs commercial building owners to: https://njcleanenergy.com/commercial-industrial/programs/cea-benchmarking. 

There are two ways to source the water usage data required for you to comply: 

Self-serve water usage data via MyWater 

The simplest way to find your building’s water usage data is by accessing your account(s) online via our MyWater customer portal. Among the many things customers can do in MyWater is track and export monthly water usage information by meter, meaning you can easily self-serve all the information you need to complete the template spreadsheet required to upload into the ESPM tool. See image below for how to access your meter read history once in your MyWater account. 

Benchmarking Demo Horizontal-cropped.png

If you are the owner of the building but not the water utility account holder, consider asking your tenants to create a MyWater account, or login if they are already setup, and provide you with the required data. Again, this is the simplest and most efficient way for you to access the water usage information required. If you are able to self-serve your usage information, you’re done! 

Request usage data from New Jersey American Water 

This method should only be used if you are unable to self-serve the information via MyWater. If you need to request the data from New Jersey American Water, anticipate it taking 4-6 weeks from your request until all criteria has been satisfied, any required consent forms have been processed, and the data has been prepared and formatted for transmission. To avoid compliance filing delays, consider self-serving the data via MyWater as discussed above. 

Some reasons you may be unable to self-serve: 

  • You’re not the customer and thus don’t have access to account information via MyWater and you cannot get your tenant(s) to provide the necessary data. 
  • There are multiple meters that serve the building(s) as well as multiple customers and sourcing the data is complex requiring utility intervention and support. 

 

Please complete the form below to log your request for usage information with New Jersey American Water. The submission will be utilized by our staff to compile the list of meters that serve your building and the monthly water usage data you require to comply. As mentioned above, please anticipate 4-6 weeks from submission until you receive the data. 

 

 

A note about required consents. 

To protect consumer privacy, New Jersey American Water will verify whether a commercial building has four or more tenants, and that no single tenant consumes more than 50% of the water in the building.  If both conditions are satisfied, New Jersey American Water will provide the data.  If either condition is not satisfied, New Jersey American Water will require the building owner to acquire the consent of each individual tenant via the linked Customer Consent to Data Release form. More information on the required consent forms will be provided to you if your building does not satisfy the 4/50% test. 

For questions, please contact NJWaterBenchmarking@amwater.com.