Energy Auditors

Identify and prioritize energy-saving measures.

AI: Fully automatable - Given building data and models, AI systems in 2025 can identify a wide range of energy-saving measures and rank them by cost, savings, and payback, allowing full automation of identification and prioritization.

Prepare audit reports containing energy analysis results or recommendations for energy cost savings.

AI: Fully automatable - AI tools can compile measured and modeled energy results and produce professional audit reports with recommendations, cost/savings estimates, and visualizations end-to-end given the input data.

Calculate potential for energy savings.

AI: Fully automatable - Given measured or modeled baseline data and retrofit parameters, AI can accurately calculate projected energy savings and perform sensitivity and financial analyses automatically.

Quantify energy consumption to establish baselines for energy use or need.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can ingest meter/billing data and sensor logs to compute baseline energy consumption and produce statistical summaries for baselining.

Prepare job specification sheets for home energy improvements, such as attic insulation, window retrofits, or heating system upgrades.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can generate detailed job specification sheets from building inputs, standards, and retrofit goals, producing ready-to-review specs given the necessary measurement data.

Educate customers on energy efficiency or answer questions on topics such as the costs of running household appliances or the selection of energy-efficient appliances.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can provide tailored education and answer appliance cost and selection questions using efficiency data, usage models, and up-to-date product information.

Recommend energy-efficient technologies or alternate energy sources.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can evaluate building characteristics, load profiles, and local resource data to recommend energy-efficient technologies or alternative energy sources.

Determine patterns of building use to show annual or monthly needs for heating, cooling, lighting, or other energy needs.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can analyze time-series meter or sensor data to infer occupancy and operational patterns and produce annual or monthly heating, cooling, lighting, and load profiles.

Compare existing energy consumption levels to normative data.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can compare measured consumption to normative datasets or benchmarks and identify deviations and probable causes.

Analyze energy bills, including utility rates or tariffs, to gather historical energy usage data.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can parse utility bills, extract usage and tariff information, and compile historical usage and cost trends for analysis.

Identify opportunities to improve the operation, maintenance, or energy efficiency of building or process systems.

AI: Partial - AI tools can analyze building/process data and recommend efficiency improvements, but accurate identification often requires on-site inspection, physical measurements, and human assessment for feasibility.

Analyze technical feasibility of energy-saving measures, using knowledge of engineering, energy production, energy use, construction, maintenance, system operation, or process systems.

AI: Partial - AI can analyze designs, simulations and standards to assess feasibility and flag obvious issues, but detailed engineering judgments, site-specific structural/code compliance and complex system interactions still require human engineers.

Inspect or evaluate building envelopes, mechanical systems, electrical systems, or process systems to determine the energy consumption of each system.

AI: Partial - AI can evaluate energy consumption from sensor data, drawings and images, but cannot perform the physical hands-on inspection needed to fully determine all system conditions without human or IoT instrumentation support.

Identify any health or safety issues related to planned weatherization projects.

AI: Partial - AI can flag common health and safety hazards from plans and data (e.g., asbestos, combustion safety, moisture risks), but on-site verification and some nuanced safety judgments require human inspection and mitigation planning.

Inspect newly installed energy-efficient equipment to ensure that it was installed properly and is performing according to specifications.

AI: Partial - AI can analyze performance data and installation photos/telemetry to detect many installation or performance issues, but hands-on verification and certain functional tests still require human technicians.

Collect and analyze field data related to energy usage.

AI: Partial - While AI excels at analyzing and synthesizing field data, actual physical collection of sensors or manual readings requires human or automated hardware deployment, so the full task is only partially automatable.

Perform tests such as blower-door tests to locate air leaks.

AI: Partial - AI can interpret blower-door test results and guide testing protocols, but it cannot physically perform the test or handle access/physical sealing operations without on-site personnel and instruments.

Measure energy usage with devices such as data loggers, universal data recorders, light meters, sling psychrometers, psychrometric charts, flue gas analyzers, amp probes, watt meters, volt meters, thermometers, or utility meters.

AI: Partial - AI can ingest and process readings from data loggers and meters to measure energy usage, but cannot itself operate physical measurement devices or perform hands-on meter readings without hardware integration.

Examine commercial sites to determine the feasibility of installing equipment that allows building management systems to reduce electricity consumption during peak demand periods.

AI: Partial - AI can perform remote feasibility assessments using plans, meters, and models but typically cannot replace on-site inspections and coordination needed for final feasibility determinations.

Verify income eligibility of participants in publicly financed weatherization programs.

AI: Partial - AI can assist with extracting and preliminarily validating income documentation and flagging eligibility but final determination often requires human review and authoritative database checks due to privacy and legal requirements.

Oversee installation of equipment such as water heater wraps, pipe insulation, weatherstripping, door sweeps, or low-flow showerheads to improve energy efficiency.

AI: Not automatable - AI cannot physically supervise or perform hands-on installation work or ensure workmanship and code compliance on-site.