If you want to get a good feel for the practice of energy efficiency, particularly in commercial buildings, where experts say 40 percent of energy in America is consumed, do yourself a favor and read Eric Bloom’s Pike Research blog on the topic. In it, he highlights results of a recent survey of building retrofit professionals Pike conducted on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Institute focusing on the “Most Difficult Phases of Retrofit Execution.”

The results are illuminating. Surprisingly, “implementation” of energy efficiency measures ranked dead last in degree of difficulty, far behind project financing, measurement and verification (M&V), auditing and benchmarking (A&B), and selecting energy efficiency measures. Put another way, the pros say the hard part isn’t doing the retrofit, it’s identifying what to retrofit, how to prove the benefit, and how to continually improve upon it.

One thing I find interesting about all of this is that each of these aspects of the retrofit process depend on a holdover from pre-Internet days: the building audit. One irony here is that retrofits often require additional walk-throughs after the fact to see if the recommended retrofits are performing as expected – in effect, an audit of the audit. When does it end?

Eric makes an excellent point that new software-based approaches stand to make a lot of improvements in this process. I agree and am hearing from customers like you that in many cases swapping out, or supplementing, physical building audits with a more efficient process that leverages technology instead of plane travel and walking shoes is the right way forward.

What do you think of the Pike Research survey? What do you find to be the most difficult part of the retrofit process? And if you could tackle your building audits on your laptop or PC, what would you do with your extra time?

Let me know, and I’ll report back on what I hear.