An intervention is an event, action, or set of measures implemented that are expected to have some effect on building energy consumption, such as a retrofit, performance or installation of a measure, or a behavioral change. As a minimum, intervention data can be expressed as a project identifier that is mapped to a particular building or site along with the date(s) when the intervention was being performed, also referred to as the blackout period. The time period prior to the start of the blackout period is called the baseline or pre-intervention period, while the time period following the date when the intervention is considered active is referred to as the performance or reporting or post-intervention period.

The minimal set of intervention data can also be mapped to additional attributes, referred to as metadata, through the project identifier (e.g. measure details, predicted savings, incentive information). Metadata is not used for calculating energy consumption changes, but is useful for slicing and dicing results and gaining insights into the performance of different categories of projects or contractors.