FirstView: Diagnostic Software and Services for Building Energy Performance

The majority of commercial buildings have little or no readily available feedback on energy performance. Utility bills provide some insight, but their potential to target particular areas for energy savings is limited. Currently, other tools provide only general benchmarking information or require extensive data input.

FirstView™ software and services are new tools that enable building owners, energy efficiency professionals and designers to extract more targeted and useful energy performance information from basic data inputs. Developed by New Buildings Institute and tested on thousands of buildings, the FirstView tool automatically creates a simplified building energy model that can quickly diagnose opportunities for improvement and automatically compare a building’s performance against peers. Using only monthly utility bills and a few building characteristics, NBI's FirstView software and services can help move beyond a static benchmarking score allowing you to invest audit resources where they will be most effective.

FirstView Software and Services Overview

Understanding the FirstView Tool's Results 

Sample FirstView Web Tool Report

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Case Studies of Applications for FirstView Software and Services

Several organizations and companies have utilized NBI's FirstView software and services to analyze building energy performance, including U.S. Green Building Council's Building Performance Partnership program, the California Energy Commission’s PIER Program and StopWaste.ORG. Read More 

For more information, contact Amy Cortese, amy@newbuildings.org.

FirstView™ development was supported from the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Kresge Foundation. Initial support was also provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.