HONG EXAMINER – JUNE 2025
Monthly Newsletter of Hong Consulting, LLC.
Auto Utility Upload. The 2024 electricity usage has finally been uploaded to the City & County of Honolulu’s auto upload function! To use the auto utility upload, you need to click on the following link and make an account: https://bbb.utility.touchstoneiq.com/. You will then use the account to sync electricity usage to each of your properties inside of EnergyStar Portfolio Manager. For instructions on how to use the auto utility upload, please click here. It will take you to a document that provides instructions on how to use the auto upload feature.
Please note that electricity usage does not automatically sync to your EnergyStar Portfolio Manager properties in subsequent years after the first sync. To do so you must log into the portal and then go to Consent Management. On that tab you must locate your property and click on View Synced Data. Confirm if the 2024 electricity data is in the system and then click Sync Utility Data in the top right corner of the screen. That should sync the 2024 electricity data to your property. You will need to do this for every property inside of EnergyStar Portfolio Manager. If you run into any issues, you can contact the City & County of Honolulu’s Better Buildings Benchmarking Help Desk at bbb@energy.honolulu.gov.
Reporting Date Deferred. The City & County of Honolulu has moved the reporting deadline for all covered buildings to September 30th of this year. The original reporting deadline was June 30th. The City & County of Honolulu moved the deadline because of delays in the issuance of the Covered Buildings List and delays in the availability of 2024 electricity data on the auto utility upload portal. The reporting deadline next year will still be June 30th. I recommend starting the reporting process early because it can take time to gather the information necessary to report, especially in the first year.
Webinars. As a result of the reporting deadline deferral, Hong Consulting and Hawaii Energy have added three new webinar dates to go over the following:
· Why building benchmarking is required,
· Who must comply with the Better Buildings Benchmarking Ordinance,
· How a building owner prepares a benchmarking report, and
· When the benchmarking report is due.
Hawaii Energy follows up Hong Consulting’s presentation with a short presentation on how to use the benchmarking reports to save your building money by taking advantage of Hawaii Energy’s services and rebates to reduce your energy usage.
If you have board members who ask you why this is required or question the necessity of using professionals to help with compliance, please let them know about these webinars. If you have colleagues who have not gone through the benchmarking reporting process before or know of anyone who might be interested in learning how to report themselves, please let them know about these webinars. There are 778 new buildings that need to file. That means education about the Better Buildings Benchmarking Program needs to rise.
The following are the dates for the webinars:
· Better Building Benchmarking Compliance Webinar | June 25th 9 AM - 10 AM
· Better Building Benchmarking Compliance Webinar | July 24th 10 AM - 11 AM
· Better Building Benchmarking Compliance Webinar | August 12th 2 PM - 3 PM
To register for the events, please email Hong Consulting at adrianhong@hongconsultingllc.com.
Covered Buildings List. The City & County of Honolulu recently deleted the Covered Buildings List off their website and re-uploaded it with an easier to read version. Unfortunately, that broke all the links that everyone had used to access the Covered Buildings List. The following link will take you to the revised document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rx7Yvdf78-oKWEbyxXgJYIB8d4K_digj/edit?gid=1596039727#gid=1596039727.
The list contains 778 new buildings, which is by far the biggest wave of filers under the Better Buildings Benchmarking Ordinance (Ordinance 22-17). That makes it all the more important to start the process early as the utilities will be inundated with requests for usage data. Plan ahead by allocating enough time and resources to file. If you are short on time and resources, Hong Consulting would be happy to help prepare and submit your benchmarking report.
