Prioritizing Decision Factors of Energy Efficiency Retrofit for Facilities Portfolio Management

Abstract

Improvements to building energy efficiency are critical to a more sustainable future. In this paper, an analytic hierarchy process method was applied to systematically highlight how experts prioritize various factors and contexts in their decisions to implement energy efficiency retrofit. This study surveyed 236 facility management experts in the United States to obtain a consensus about how they prioritized five decision criteria, including 15 factors to retrofit. Additionally, a cross-context comparison was conducted to examine differing perceptions of retrofit as a function of physical, functional, and social contexts. The three most important factors across all US respondents were payback period, life-cycle cost, and funding mechanism. The least considered factors were CO2 emissions, educational programs, and demand pressure. This study revealed no significant disagreement between public and private institutions or between executives and nonexecutives. Larger magnitudes of weight differences were observed mainly among diverse climate zones and industry sectors. Findings are relevant to regulators proposing initiatives to increase energy efficiency adoption.