Frequently
Asked Questions About New Jersey Benchmarking
Answers & Guidance
Faqs
Covered buildings are generally Class 4A commercial and Class 4C apartment
properties over 25,000 square feet. The Board’s covered-building framework excludes
several other tax classes, including industrial properties and most local public
property, while state facilities benchmark in a separate lead-by-example track.
Yes, apartment properties classified as Class 4C are included when they are over
25,000 square feet. The Board specifically adopted Class 4C apartments into the
covered-building list.
Not under the covered-building treatment adopted in the 2022 benchmark order. The
Board distinguished condominiums from apartments because condominiums generally do
not operate under the same single-owner commercial structure.
No. The covered-building framework adopted by the Board excludes Class 4B industrial
properties from the mandatory covered-building list.
Not typically. The Board’s covered-building list excludes most local public
property, including county and local government property, while state-owned
facilities benchmark separately under a same-timeline lead-by-example approach. For
local agencies, voluntary benchmarking and the Local Government Energy Audit program
are often the more relevant pathways.
Owners in the 2026 reporting cycle are expected to submit January 1, 2025 through
December 31, 2025 energy and water data by July 1, 2026. The New Jersey program page
and NJBPU homepage both state this directly.
Not according to the official FY26 materials reviewed. The Board originally adopted
a 90-day grace period for the first two reporting years, but the FY26 update states
that the Board no longer provided a grace period and required the July 1 submission
deadline.
The safest answer for a public website is that official 2026 sources reviewed do not
specify a fresh per-building monetary penalty schedule, but the lack of a grace
period means owners should treat July 1 as a real compliance line, not a soft
target. Earlier Board materials discussed late notices, nonresponsive status, and
public-reporting design, but the reviewed 2026 materials do not publish a new
per-building fine schedule. That detail is therefore unspecified in the official
sources reviewed here.
Yes. The benchmark itself is built on the EPA’s Portfolio Manager tool. The state’s
benchmark requirement and NJ Clean Energy program materials both point to Portfolio
Manager as the required reporting platform.
No. NJ Clean Energy says owners do not need to use BEAM, but the state recommends
it, especially for owners with several covered buildings, because it is the state’s
owner-facing portal for compliance status, prior compliance data, and
correspondence.
Yes. The Board adopted a policy allowing a building owner to designate a third
party, such as a property manager, to complete the annual Portfolio Manager
submission. NJ program materials also indicate that owners may hire a third-party
consultant or NJ Certified Benchmarker.
The 4/50 rule is New Jersey’s building-level data-aggregation approach for tenant
privacy. If a building has at least four tenants or no single tenant exceeds 50% of
the building’s energy or water use, utilities can aggregate the data and provide
anonymized building-level data. If there are fewer than four tenants or one tenant
exceeds 50%, the owner needs tenant consent for data release.
Yes. The NJ order states that the 4/50 rule applies to water data whenever the water
utility customers are tenants instead of the building owner with a single master
meter.
The NJ order contemplates both regulated and unregulated utility scenarios. Owners
may need to use Data Access Request Forms, Consent Letters, or manual entry paths,
and certain good-cause removal or exemption cases can exist if an unregulated
utility refuses both aggregated and individual data access even with tenant consent.
Yes. The Board adopted exemption pathways for newly operational buildings,
demolitions, full-year vacancy, foreclosure or bankruptcy, and certain other
good-cause situations, provided supporting evidence is supplied.
At a minimum, you need basic property information, gross floor area, and 12
consecutive months of energy data for all active meters. Depending on property type
and score eligibility, additional operational details may also be needed.
Not for the annual New Jersey filing itself. Portfolio Manager benchmarking is built
around monthly whole-building utility data, but more frequent interval data can
still be extremely useful for diagnostics, optimization, and retro-commissioning.
EPA guidance notes the value of more frequent interval data where available.
EUI, or energy use intensity, is annual energy consumption divided by gross floor
area. In Portfolio Manager, EPA presents both site and source EUI, and source EUI is
the basis for the ENERGY STAR score.
A strong service provider should use limited-access workflows, documented
permissions, and secure transfer/storage practices. That message is reinforced by
the public source base: New Jersey’s 4/50 framework is designed to anonymize
building-level data where possible, and EPA states that Portfolio Manager operates
in a secure online environment and that ENERGY STAR systems undergo annual
government security auditing.
Have a question not answered here? Reach out to our New Jersey benchmarking
specialists today.