Energy and Water Audits for Federal Buildings

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) plays a key role in helping agencies understand and meet energy and water auditing requirements, including the facility evaluation (i.e., audits) requirements of Section 432 of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007.

This support includes identifying, sharing, and demonstrating best practices among federal agencies.

Not only can audits be used to meet EISA 2007 requirements, they can be leveraged to comply with strategic programmatic goals and assist in planning efforts. For example, audits can be used to inform infrastructure resilience and security objectives, energy and water management programs, and capital project plans.

Facility Audit Program Goals

FEMP's Facility Audit Program has four strategic goals:

1. Federal agencies integrate audits into comprehensive energy and water management programs, such as 50001 Ready, to pursue continuous improvement
2. Increase energy and water savings and other beneficial results delivered through projects identified during auditing efforts
3. Increase the value-to-cost ratio of audits in federal facilities by using alternative audit methods and capturing audit synergies with other energy programs
4. Increase agencies' compliance with the EISA evaluation requirement.

Facility Audit Decision Tree

FEMP developed the FEMP Facility Evaluation (Audit) Decision Tree, which agencies can use to determine the best approaches for evaluating their facilities. This decision tree provides a framework for agencies to:

• Interpret gathered facility data to understand the existing conditions and benchmark the facility against others in the portfolio to determine whether an onsite or remote audit is appropriate for a facility
• Determine the best type of assessment among the remote or onsite audit options to meet agencies auditing goals, such as meeting EISA requirements and developing projects
• Improve federal agencies' energy and water management programs, such as 50001 Ready, by integrating audits.

Audit Definitions

FEMP developed Facility Evaluation (Audit) Definitions to serve as a detailed reference for the facility audit terms used in the Facility Evaluation (Audit) Decision Tree and Audit Scope of Work (SOW) templates.

Statements of Work

FEMP developed template statements of work for federal agencies to procure EISA-compliant audit services. These templates will be for remote and on-site audits.

• FEMP Basic On-Site Audit Scope of Work Background and Instructions for Use
• FEMP Desk Audit Scope of Work Background and Instructions for Use

Coming Soon!

FEMP is developing the FEMP Consolidated Facility Management Guidance, which will be available early 2021.