In this issue of M&V Focus, John Avina asks if every meter's regression must have a CV(RMSE) below a certain level for the regression to be considered statistically significant. John argues that in the context of a portfolio of meters, perhaps the overall portfolio CV(RMSE) should be considered, rather than each meter's CV(RMSE).

Dolf van Hatterm presents an exciting methodology for energy accounting. The premise of this paper is that robust energy reporting is essential because it is generally recognized that durable improvements in energy efficiency require permanent energy performance monitoring. The method presented in his article is derived from the standard practices used for financial reporting and allows the presentation of results concisely, similar to financial statements.

Paul Calberg was involved in a major project in France from 2018 to 2021 that had as the main objective to look at the state of the science regarding the energy performance of buildings, highlight the best practices, and suggest tools for practitioners. Paul chairs the IPMVP sub-committee on Option D. Based on the group's recent feedback and extended discussions with colleagues in the industry, he outlines some original thoughts on M&V concepts. Based on the IPMVP fundamentals, these concepts could lead to a broader use or application of the Protocol.

EVO's IPMVP Non-Routine Events and Adjustments application guide (NRE/A Guide) was used by Amir Kamandlooie, Scott Rouse, and Lucas Oliveira of Energy@Work to verify energy savings during COVID. Non-Routine Adjustment (NRA) Method #2, #6, and #10 were used to help Toronto Hydro verify 16,717,742 kWh across 21 commercial offices from 2017 to December 31, 2020. This article reports results for one of these buildings.

Vilnis Verma explains how clamp-on ultrasonic flow meters were fitted to measure cooling energy as part of a measurement and verification project. Preliminary analysis in the early weeks of the project showed that all was not well: there were big apparent performance swings unrelated to what M&V experts knew was going on in the plant—an interesting case of the importance of the human factor in M&V.

The energy transition calls for rational use of all forms of energy, and resulting energy savings must be credibly validated with recognized Measurement and Verification (M&V) techniques. This is particularly important for projects performed under the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) business model. Pierre Langlois and Denis Tanguay explain how M&V activities are at the core of energy efficiency projects and discuss the role of M&V in EPC.

Bill Koran presents an interesting application of M&V for a residential building located in Boise, Idaho. He reports on an HVAC system upgrade and explains how he used the ECAM spreadsheet add-in to analyze energy use in the building.

Finally, Denis Tanguay illustrates a sad case where energy savings did not translate into financial savings. The case study presents a ground-source heat pump system installed many years ago. He shows the importance of gathering the appropriate information before installing an energy efficiency measure, during its installation, and during the performance period.

In this issue of M&V Focus, Krystian Muñoz and Álvaro Soto of the Chilean Energy Sustainability Agency (Agencia de Sostenibilidad Energética) present the structure and results of the Certification of Energy Project Savings (Certificación de Ahorros de Proyectos Energéticos (CAPE)). This mechanism is based on the IPMVP, and the objective is to establish a standard mechanism that allows and facilitates the reporting of projects’ measurement and verification results.

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has affected everyone, creating various critical issues and difficulties worldwide, and energy reduction projects are no exception. In the context of measurement and verification (M&V) efforts, COVID has caused widespread non-routine events! Given the complexities faced by the industry, EVO’s Focus Group on COVID-19 has developed several resources intended to guide on risks and options for projects and programs, including two articles in this issue of M&V Focus. The first article provides perspectives from the market. It gives a larger context of COVID’s impacts on energy markets and M&V. It illustrates the diversity of impacts by sector and how difficult it may be to differentiate COVD impacts on energy use from those due to weather variations, highlighting the importance of site-specific analysis. In the second article, discussions are included for utility-funded programs and their evaluation efforts, for energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), as well as for energy management efforts and focus on meter-based M&V.

Finally, our last article describes Energy@Work’s experience in using EVO’s Non-Routine Adjustment Method #6, to quantify the electricity savings resulting from energy efficiency measures at Berkely Castle, a mid-tier historic commercial office building in Toronto, and distinguish them from the kWh reductions due to lower occupancy during the pandemic from March 1st to May 31st, 2020.

In this issue of M&V Focus, Anna Kelly and Craig Sinnamon propose a paper that analyzes daily and hourly energy efficiency projects using IPMVP Option C methods. They demonstrate that models can identify savings as low as 3 % of facility consumption. Colin Grenville takes us through another exciting case studies where a client decided to install solar PV on its property after an ESCO commissioned other ECMs, and without consideration of the ongoing M&V activity. Saghi Salehi and Maryam Rezaie present a case study of natural gas consumption in a complex of administrative buildings with a single supplier meter to measure the energy consumption of 5 separate facilities and a restaurant. They discuss measurements of uncertainties and statistical errors. Matheus Lage discusses M & V in public lighting in Brazil, focusing on comparing the methodologies used by the Energy Efficiency Program of the National Electric Energy Agency and by Eletrobras. Phil Combs presents the outcome of a recent update of the ANSI C-137.5 standard that provides specifications regarding energy measurement from lighting systems and devices. This standard addresses M&V considerations such as uncertainty, error, precision, and calibration. Finally, Paul Calberg-Ellen and Nathan Lee present French translations of eight articles published in M&V Focus in 2018 and 2019.

The first article of this issue of M&V Focus presents an abstract of the EVO White Paper IPMVP’s Snapshot on Advanced Measurement & Verification. The document discusses some of the issues raised in the context of work conducted by EVO’s subcommittee on M&V 2.0. This work is currently leading the development of two Application Guides: ‘Advanced Meter-Based M&V Methods’ and ‘Non-Routine Events and Non-routine Adjustments.’ In November 2019, EVO’s training partner in Italy, the Federazione Italiana per l’uso Razionale dell’Energia (FIRE), organized a one-day conference on M&V in Rimini. We invited three of the event’s speakers to present a summary of their presentation in this issue of M&V Focus. Alberto Griffa and Armando Portoraro explain how an in-depth analysis of critical factors was fundamental in the replacement of a drying line. Stefano Dotta provides an interesting example of ESCO projects realized under a shared saving scheme with a municipal union. Finally, we asked Marco Rossi to prepare a simple case study of a series of energy conservation measures implemented at a Viessmann office and warehouse. The project M&V was performed using Option C and includes energy exchange with the local electricity grid. Finally, Bruce Rowse describes the many different approaches with which data can be collected from a meter and transferred to the cloud. It introduces to M&V practitioners the widely used Open System Interconnection (OSI) model of computer networks for conceptualizing the functions of the software and hardware used to achieve this.

In this issue of M&V Focus, we present the full text of a May 2019 position statement issued by EVO regarding deemed savings. Mark Stetz offers a solid perspective on the use of the R2 value in M&V and reminds readers that the real goal of M&V is to minimize the uncertainty in the reported savings. Greg Anderson discusses his experience performing measurement and verification of energy savings in real-world buildings, which suggests that using a baseline period longer than 12 months can offer improvements in reliability when quantifying occupancy impact. Colin Grenville offers some practical perspective of finding the right balance between cost and accuracy as a critical consideration in designing an M&V strategy that provides adequate certainty. Alex Rathmell shows how the IPMVP is used for evaluating a new generation of nearly-zero-energy building renovations in Europe. Paul Calberg-Ellen explains how a risk-cost calculation allows quantitative risk management for measurement and simulation uncertainties. Finally, we present the second part in Portuguese (Brazil) of the article on measurement boundary by Agenor Garcia and Bruce Rowse.

Following strong demand from our readership, EVO is pleased to present this multilingual issue of M&V Focus. We wish to extend our thanks to the authors who prepared articles in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese (Brazil). As promised in the previous issue, we are presenting some key findings from the global M&V industry survey we conducted in the Fall of 2018. We also present the second part (in English) of the article on measurement boundary by Agenor Garcia and Bruce Rowse and the first part of this article in Portuguese (Brazil). RETScreen Expert is often used to verify energy savings under IPMVP Option C. In his article, Kevin Bourque is showing how RETScreen Expert can also be used for Options A, B and D. At EVO’s request, Eric Mazzi prepared an interesting paper discussing perspectives on M&V for behavioral change programs in commercial and industrial facilities. Eric Oliver discusses the role of real-time data in monitoring and verification. A team of M&V specialists at Dalkia Smart Building in Paris are presenting a case study of an M&V project conducted with non-intrusive load monitoring. Finally, Maria Cubillo offers some insights regarding the selection of an IPMVP option in the context of an M&V project in a hospital in Spain.

In this issue, Kevin Warren, the chair of EVO’s IPMVP sub-committee on EM&V provides additional insights on deemed savings in response to a previous article on this topic published in the June 2018 issue of M&V Focus. We also present part 1 of a two-part article on measurement boundaries in M&V projects. This article prepared by Agenor Garcia and Bruce Rowse explores the concept of the measurement boundary and its impact on independent variables, static factors and interactive effects in an M&V project. Zlatko Gjrchinoski is sharing a field experience on non-energy benefits gained from the implementation of an energy management system at the Vardar Dolomit Gostivar Facility. Nick Keegan reports on industry survey results showing that good M&V practices are on a positive trend in the UK. Finally, Geert Goorden outlines the framework of the QualitEE project and shows how quality assurance schemes and M&V in buildings could potentially increase investment in energy efficiency.

A new version of the ISO 50001 standard will be released soon and Rajvant Nijjhar, Director at iVEES and a member of the ISO TC301, offered to highlight some of the updates and new features. Tracy Phillips, the Chairman of the IPMVP committee shares some of his thoughts on M&V adjustment abuse. This is timely as the committee is just starting work on an application guide for non-routine adjustments. Alex Rathmell, an Associate Partner at EnergyPro explains how the IPMVP, the world’s most cited M&V protocol, is core and central to new protocols from the Investor Confidence Project in Europe. Colin Grenville, President of Erebus Environmental gratefully accepted to prepare another practical exercise, this time related to non-routine adjustments for schools. Finally, Denis Tanguay, the Executive Director of EVO, discusses some issues related to deemed savings. EVO is currently committed to publishing a white paper on this topic in the second half of 2018.