The long-term vision is for a BEDES organization to review, support, and promote BEDES-compliant products. A key part of this effort will be to facilitate two different paths for compliance: through Mapping and Exchange, as shown in Table 1.  Mapping compliance documents the relationships between the terms and definitions used in a product and the associated BEDES terms.  Exchange compliance takes Mapping compliance one step further by establishing a schema for exchanging that information electronically.

BEDES Compliance Table

Criteria Mapping Compliance Exchange Compliance
Product Document showing mapping to BEDES terms Schema with BEDES terms
Applicability Software tools, schemas, database, data forms, etc. Schemas
Map to BEDES terms1 Yes Yes
BEDES team approves mapping Yes Yes
BEDES team approves schema2 Not Applicable Yes
Public publishing on BEDES website Yes Yes
Right to use “BEDES” in product marketing Yes Yes
Examples Mapping of:
CEUS,
CBECS,
Portfolio Manager
BEDES for Commercial Audits,
BEDES for Residential Audits,
BEDES for Energy Data

1  Not all BEDES terms have to be used, only those that apply. Additional fields that are out of BEDES scope are allowed.
2  The exchange schema does not apply to the database or internal schema, only to files meant to exchange data in or out of software.

 

  • Mapping Compliance. In “mapping compliance” an implementation, such as the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), submits a Mapping Document to the BEDES implementation team for verification, which shows how the fields in the specific implementation map to the BEDES terms. The template for the mapping will be provided by the BEDES implementation team. The mapping could be for a number of different implementations, e.g., software, survey, database, schema, etc.

    Once this mapping is approved by the BEDES implementation team, the application can claim to have a “BEDES-Compliant Mapping.” This mapping can be made publically available so that all market actors can translate data from that data format into the BEDES format in a consistent way.  This enables BEDES to act as a “Rosetta stone” to translate data between any other two formats.

    To show mapping compliance, the application does NOT need to have an electronic file format that can import and export data (see Exchange Compliance). Mapping compliance may be a less expensive option because it does not require any additional software development. It is also a viable option for applications that do not hold any data, such as survey forms and data collection protocols, pre-existing research datasets, or for applications that are no longer supported but whose data is still in use.

  • Exchange Compliance. The BEDES implementation team is expected to develop or adopt, in partnership with implementers, standard BEDES-compliant Exchange Schemas for various use cases, such as commercial and residential audit data, energy data, energy efficiency data, etc. Schemas organize the terms into a hierarchical structure, and can have required and optional fields, as well as procedures for validating that the data has been entered correctly and exchanged successfully. Where appropriate and desirable, these BEDES-compliant Exchange Schemas will be adopted from or modeled after established formats, such as Home Performance XML for residential audit data, BuildingSync for commercial audit data and Green Button for energy data. The BEDES-compliant Exchange Schemas can have one or more formats, e.g., XML, CSV, JSON, etc., allowing the market to exchange data that is standardized and widely understood by all parties involved in the data transaction. The BEDES implementation team would release the BEDES-compliant Exchange Schemas (on the website, for example), but it would be up to the software developers to implement them.

    Note that it is the schema that complies with BEDES, while individual tools and import/export files comply with the schema. Software tools could show “Exchange Compliance” with multiple exchange formats. For example, a software tool used for auditing could show “Exchange Compliance” for both residential and commercial audit schemas.

    There is a still-to-be-resolved issue about whether software products should be able to say they are BEDES-compliant even if they didn’t publish their proprietary schema.  Since BEDES compliance is essentially about the exchange involving other parties, they could be required to publish only their import/export schema, not their internal database structure.

    In both compliance cases, terms that are outside of the scope of BEDES would be allowed. A tagging mechanism could also be applied to be able to identify which terms are in the BEDES dictionary and which are not. Version control will become important as new terms get added to BEDES over time.

    Another strategy to pursue would be to work with initial pilots that could help formalize mapping capabilities to allow multiple tools to connect, as opposed to one-on-one customization. In addition, the BEDES support team can publish guidelines on how to map fields to BEDES, giving several examples of mapping strategies.

Federal Tools

Many stakeholders already rely on federal analytical tools such as Portfolio Manager, the asset scoring tools, and the Buildings Performance Database (BPD). These tools have been mapped to or fully aligned with the BEDES dictionary. Aligning the data formats for all these tools and activities reduces the data management burden for external stakeholders and unlocks the full utility of data that is already collected. Federal tools in the list below have agreed to move towards BEDES compliance. More specifically, all tools will be mapping compliant within the fiscal year, with SEED going on to become exchange compliant. Compliant mappings will be available on the LBNL website as soon as they are completed. View a list of federal tools that currently map to BEDES on the BEDES technical website.

Private-Sector Tools

Private-sector tools that utilize energy performance data will be essential to providing the best products and services to the market, and while DOE does not endorse any specific private tools, private tools may voluntarily adopt or align with BEDES to the extent that BEDES supports their use cases. View a list of tools that currently adopt the BEDES dictionary on LBNL’s BEDES site.

How BEDES Relates to Other Tools

Several specifications have achieved substantial market traction, serve similar use cases to BEDES, and provide data terms and definitions that can be used for different parts of the BEDES specification. These data formats and others have been "knitted together" so that BEDES uses established, effective definitions wherever possible. View a list of specifications that are currently integrated with BEDES on LBNL’s BEDES site.