ENERGY SAVINGS FOR THE BUILDING OPERATOR CERTIFICATION (BOC® ) PROGRAM
Anna Siebenborn
The Building Operator Certification (BOC®) program has consistently produced positive documented energy savings and has proved to be cost effective. Since 2000, a number of BOC program sponsors have engaged independent third-party evaluators to assess and document the BOC’s energy savings impacts. This factsheet (FAQ) summarizes the electricity and fossil fuel savings from the studies published in this body of work. With increased reliance on energy efficiency as a resource and more utilities claiming energy savings for their BOC programs, the energy savings continue to be rigorously scrutinized.
Energy Savings Results
BOC credentialed operators save electricity and fossil fuel in the buildings they manage while reducing electrical demand. As shown in Table 1 below, the BOC program on average saves roughly 96,240 kWhs of electricity per credentialed operator per year. Converted to dollars, this represents a savings of $12,655 annually for a 5 year period.1 For the building owner, these savings cover the tuition and labor cost to send a building operator to BOC more than 3 times over, making BOC a highly cost-effective investment. In addition to electricity savings, BOC-credentialed operators save on average 14.5 kW in electric demand and 1,400 therms annually.
Table 1 summarizes twenty three (23) of the most recent and relevant BOC impact evaluation studies. It is important to note that the studies use different methodologies, assumptions and adjustments to generate results, making it not possible to have a true apples-to-apples comparison.2
Table 1 provides savings data reported for each of the most common metrics used across the studies: per credentialed operator, per square foot managed, and percent savings per credentialed operator. Where results were reported in a range, the most conservative number was used for this summary. When there was no consistency across reported results, no conclusions appear on the table. Given the wide range of results, this information is a rough estimate of the BOC program’s potential impacts.
TABLE 1. Summary of BOC Energy Saving Evaluation Results from 2000-2022
The full analysis can be found at the end of this summary. The original evaluation reports are located on the BOC website at http://www.theboc.info/w-energy-savings.html.
Other Savings Factors
• Cost Effectiveness: The cost effectiveness of the BOC Program was calculated in a few of the evaluation reports. While the approaches and the tests used may have differed, the BOC program always passed the cost effectiveness tests and in some cases was found to be extremely cost effective. 3
• Persistence: Most studies used the assumption that energy savings from BOC graduates would last a period of 5 years. The NEEA 2003 study set a measure life of 5.7 years. The NEEA 2014 study suggested that savings persisted beyond 5 years yet did not have enough supporting evidence to draw a firm conclusion.
• Water Savings: The Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships 2005 study calculated water savings of 113,660 gallons of water saved per enrollee and .14 gallons per square foot.
Claiming Savings
Ten Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) allow their regulated utilities to claim BOC energy savings toward annual conservation targets.BOC program sponsors evaluate their programs to determine the appropriate level of energy savings that most accurately represents BOC operators in their geographic region. Table 2 provides savings assumptions accepted by state PUCs.
