Level 1 — Walk-through assessment

A Level 1 audit establishes your baseline and identifies the obvious opportunities.

We analyze 24 to 36 months of utility data, benchmark your building against comparable facilities, and walk the site with a licensed auditor. The output identifies low-cost and no-cost measures — usually control adjustments, scheduling, and maintenance items — with order-of-magnitude savings estimates, plus a list of capital measures worth investigating further.

Choose Level 1 when you own several buildings and need to know which one to look at first, when you need a defensible number for a budget submission, or when you suspect a problem but cannot name it.

What Level 1 will not do: support an incentive application that requires detailed savings calculations, or give you cost estimates you can build a capital plan on.

Level 2 — Energy survey and analysis

This is the audit most buildings actually need, and the one most Canadian incentive programs are built around.

A Level 2 audit surveys each major system in turn — building envelope, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, domestic hot water, lighting, controls, and process loads where they exist. We break your consumption down by end use, so you can see where the energy is actually going rather than inferring it from a single utility bill.

Every recommended measure comes with an installed cost estimate, annual energy and cost savings, simple payback, and the incentive available against it. We include a measurement and verification plan so that savings can be confirmed after the work is done — which most funding programs require.

Choose Level 2 when you are applying to Save on Energy's Retrofit Program, an Enbridge commercial custom project, or a provincial equivalent; when you are building a multi-year capital plan; or when a lender or your board has asked for costed options rather than ideas.

Level 3 — Investment-grade audit

A Level 3 audit is what you commission when the decision is large enough that an estimate is not good enough.

It includes everything in a Level 2, plus field measurement and data logging on major systems, and a calibrated energy model — a simulation tuned until it reproduces your building's actual metered consumption. Because the model is calibrated, savings projections carry far less uncertainty, which is what makes them financeable.

Cost estimates are engineering-grade. Interactive effects between measures are modelled rather than assumed, which matters because efficiency measures affect each other — improve the envelope and the savings from a heating upgrade change.

Choose Level 3 when you are entering a performance contract with guaranteed savings, financing a deep retrofit, pursuing a specific carbon reduction target, or making a capital commitment where being wrong is expensive.

What Canadian programs and regulations expect

This is where a Canadian audit provider matters more than an international one.

Save on Energy Retrofit Program (Ontario). Funds up to 50% of eligible project cost, with Prescriptive and Custom streams and doubled rates for most non-lighting measures in electricity-constrained regions. Custom projects require detailed savings calculations and measurement and verification — Level 2 analysis at minimum.

Enbridge commercial custom projects. Enbridge contributes toward the cost of the study itself for qualifying commercial and institutional customers. Assessments must be pre-approved before work begins, so the scope conversation has to happen first.

Efficiency Manitoba Commercial Energy Audit Program. Requires audits following the ASHRAE procedures for commercial building energy audits, with reports conforming to the Standard 211 Level 2 or Level 3 report outlines.

Energy and Water Reporting and Benchmarking (Ontario). Buildings of 50,000 square feet and over must report energy and water annually through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Buildings of 100,000 square feet and over additionally require verification by a certified professional. Benchmarking is not an audit, but it is often what prompts one — a poor benchmark score is usually the reason a building owner calls us.

Canada Infrastructure Bank building retrofits. Financing requires a minimum 30% GHG reduction per building with verified savings, which in practice means investment-grade analysis.

Who is qualified to perform one

Standard 211 defines the procedure; it does not licence the person. In Canadian practice, buyers and programs look for a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) or Certified Energy Auditor (CEA), and for larger or publicly tendered work, a Professional Engineer (P.Eng) on the team. Public tenders frequently make one of these a mandatory requirement rather than a preference.

EnerSolution's commercial team holds these credentials, and we operate as a Natural Resources Canada Registered Service Organization — a federal registration that carries file quality assurance and review obligations.

What you receive

Every EnerSolution audit delivers a report following the Standard 211 outline for the level commissioned, containing:

• An energy and emissions baseline, broken down by end use

• Building and system condition assessment

• Energy conservation measures ranked by payback, each with installed cost, annual savings and available incentives

• A measurement and verification plan

• An implementation sequence, so measures happen in an order that does not undo each other

• Documentation formatted for the incentive programs you are applying to

Common questions

How much does an ASHRAE energy audit cost? Fee depends on the level, the building's size and complexity, and how much data already exists. The last point is the one owners underestimate: a building with 24 months of utility data, drawings and an equipment list costs materially less to audit than one without. We quote a fixed fee after a short scoping conversation — no hourly billing.

How long does it take? Roughly 2–4 weeks for Level 1, 4–8 weeks for Level 2, and 8–16 weeks for Level 3, from the point data is available. Incentive pre-approval, where required, can add several weeks before work starts, so begin earlier than feels necessary.

Will an audit disrupt operations? No. Site work is observation, inspection and measurement. Data logging equipment is installed and left in place. Nothing is shut down.

We had an audit a few years ago. Do we need another one? Usually yes, and often for a better reason than you think. Incentive levels, energy prices and carbon regulations have all changed substantially since 2024. Measures that failed a payback test three years ago frequently pass today. A previous audit also makes the new one cheaper, because the baseline work is already done — send it to us.

Can you do more than one building? Yes. For portfolios we normally recommend Level 1 across all buildings to establish which ones deserve attention, then Level 2 on the buildings that justify it. Auditing twenty buildings to Level 2 when three of them hold most of the opportunity is a waste of money.

ASHRAE Level 1, 2 and 3 Energy Audits

Comprehensive Commercial & Industrial Energy Audits in Canada – EnerSolution Inc.!

Most Canadian energy efficiency incentives, lender requirements and building performance regulations now ask for the same thing: an energy audit that conforms to a recognised standard. In practice that standard is ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 211 — the procedure that defines what a commercial building energy audit must contain at each of three levels.

EnerSolution Inc. delivers Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 audits across Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba. We are a Natural Resources Canada Registered Service Organization, and our commercial team includes Professional Engineers, mechanical engineers, Certified Energy Managers (CEM) and Certified Energy Auditors (CEA).

This page explains what each level actually involves, what each one costs you in time, and — the part most guides skip — which level the Canadian programs you are applying to will accept.

Why the standard matters

Before Standard 211, "energy audit" meant whatever the person selling it wanted it to mean. A walk-through with a clipboard and a twelve-week engineering study were both called audits.

The standard fixed that. It defines the minimum scope, the analysis method and the report outline for each level. That matters to you for three reasons:

• Incentive programs reference it. Efficiency Manitoba's Commercial Energy Audit Program, for example, requires reports conforming to the Standard 211 Level 2 or Level 3 report outlines. An audit that does not follow the outline can be rejected regardless of how good the engineering is.

• Lenders and financing programs rely on it. The Canada Infrastructure Bank's building retrofit financing requires a minimum 30% GHG reduction per building, verified. That requires investment- grade analysis, not an estimate.

• It makes proposals comparable. When you put an audit out to tender, specifying a Standard 211 level means every bidder is quoting the same work.

Which level do you need?

The short version: if you need a number to put in a budget request, Level 1. If you need to decide which projects to fund and apply for incentives, Level 2 — this is what most Canadian buildings need. If you are signing a contract where the savings are guaranteed, Level 3.

Don’t miss out on valuable rebates—partner with EnerSolution Inc. and start saving today!

Contact EnerSolution Inc. & Request a Proposal

Tell us the building, the size, and what is driving the decision — a compliance deadline, an incentive application, a financing requirement or a capital plan — and we will tell you which level you need. If you do not need an audit, we will say so.

Call 1-800-203-4395 or request a proposal online.