Aquicore, a Washington, D.C.-based provider of energy management and tenant billing software for large commercial and industrial portfolios, has launched a free Tenant Submetering Calculator to help building owners and asset managers reduce their exposure to the risks of utility cost variations and provide tenants more accurate monthly invoices.
The calculator, downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet for gross leases or prorated leases in single-tenant and multi-tenant buildings, allows property managers to enter in the total sum of their utility bills to determine if there are any discrepancies between how much they are billed and how much they are collecting from tenants. The spreadsheet also provides options for transitioning one or more tenants from a square-footage based billing structure to a submetered triple net lease.
“With a gross lease, landlords are responsible the energy consumption variation,” said Logan Soya, CEO of Aquicore. “With submetering, tenants become responsible for their own consumption variation.”
Sample spreadsheet from the calculator is shown here (click to enlarge).
Similarly, with prorated leases, where each tenant is exposed to a shared value, the calculator shows how tenants with lower energy consumption can submeter their space to achieve savings in their monthly energy costs.
Soya says that the cost for submetering, which is now a requirement for LEED v4 certification, is often wrapped into the tenant’s occupancy costs as part of its Tenant Improvement allowance.
“Transitioning tenants from a square-footage based billing structure to submetering can be tricky without an installed metering system, but the new bill-back calculator helps landlords and tenants see how they can benefit from this process,” said Soya.
