Patent ID: 8355941

Claim:
A method of generating a planning of building retrofit for a portfolio of buildings, comprising: receiving input information including at least a retrofit cost for retrofitting a building, payback period specifying the length of time needed to recover the retrofit cost, a budget available for retrofitting the building, expected price of energy, estimated energy savings from retrofitting and estimated green house gas emission from retrofitting; selecting an optimization model based on an objective, the objective including maximizing cost reduction, maximizing green house gas emission reduction, or maximizing energy reduction, or combinations thereof; and generating, by a processor, the planning of building retrofit by computing the selected optimization model and the retrofit cost for retrofitting a building, the payback period specifying the length of time needed to recover the retrofit cost, the budget available for retrofitting the building, the expected price of energy, the estimated energy savings from retrofitting and the estimated green house gas emission from retrofitting, wherein the selected optimization model comprises at least: max ⁢ ⁢ ROI = max ⁢ ∑ i ⁢ ∑ j ⁢ ∑ k ⁢ R i , j ⁡ ( E i , j · P k · N i - C i , j ) s . t . ∑ j ⁢ ∑ i ⁢ R i , j ⁢ C i , j ≤ B R i , j ∈ { 0 , 1 } ⁢ ⁢ ∀ i , j for generating the planning that maximizes cost reduction, wherein i ∈ {ECM}, j ∈ {Bld}, k ∈ {Time} in periods, R i,j ∈ {0,1 } associated with ECM i in building j, C i,j =cost for retrofit associated with ECM i in building j, E i,j =energy reduction of retrofit associated with ECM i in building j, P k =expected energy price during period k, N i =payback in number of time periods associated with ECM i, B=budget for retrofit.