What if we knew the energy rating of every home in the country?
Startup EnerScore wants people to think about energy when home shopping.
Would you still buy your four-bedroom dream home if you knew what a monstrosity its electricity bill would be?
Maybe, but maybe not. Thanks to Massachusetts startup EnerScore, looking up a home’s energy score might soon be as easy as a quick online search.
“The concept behind it is fairly simple,’’ EnerScore co-founder Brian Butler said. “When you are shopping for a home or apartment, the problem is you move and get a nasty sticker shock with electricity bills, especially if you’re a renter and you’re now stuck with very high bills. We basically are bringing transparency to those actions.’’
Founded in January 2015, EnerScore is the brainchild of Butler, a longtime contractor, and his 17-year-old son, Kenn Butler. The pair entered a state-sponsored coding contest in June and won the $5,000 prize. They recently received a $40,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
“Basically, it’s a Walk Score for energy,’’ Butler said.
Walk Score measures the walkability of any address by rating its access to local services on a scale between 1 and 100. EnerScore gives residences color-coded ratings based on an estimate of their annual energy usage, providing links to a breakdown for heating and electricity.
The ratings are generated in a three-step process. First, a home’s data are fed into EnerScore’s software to produce a profile of the home’s “most likely’’ energy performance. The data points considered include the building permit, date of construction, square footage, heating and cooling systems, and fuel type.
Then, an estimated energy rating and color scheme are produced, comparable to the nationally recognized energy rating standard (the HERS rating). Finally, an estimated annual energy cost is formed, adjusted for the local utility rates in the property’s service area.
Besides making energy costs visible, EnerScore wants to help drive residents to make energy upgrades to their homes, like insulating their basement or installing new heating equipment. This has generated interest from a few U.S. cities including Boston, Butler said.
A state program called The Green Communities Division provides technical assistance and funding to Massachusetts cities and towns that find clean energy solutions and reduce their area’s long-term energy costs. “Urban sustainable city managers are interested in what we are doing to come up with better energy performance,’’ Butler said. “We’ve met with the city of Boston a number of times but there’s a lot of bureaucracy there. It’s slowly moving forward.’’
The demo still has some bugs, but Butler said he hopes to fully launch the service in August.
EnerScore plans to display its working prototype at Inman Connect, a major real estate and technology conference in San Francisco in August. Butler hopes EnerScore will eventually be a feature on every major real estate site.
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