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Energy in Buildings

Buildings use about 20% of energy worldwide and 40% in the United States. Overall building energy usage, particularly heating and cooling, can be reduced through density.

Energy Savings

Wise usage of models of building energy consumption can save significant energy, particularly in areas such as thermal bridging, or areas of high thermal conductivity which can readily cause a building to lose heat or coldness, which are not well-addressed today by building codes.

Problem:
Energy Use in Buildings
Solution:
Building Envelope Modeling Software Standardization

How Building Energy is Used

Worldwide, buildings constitute about 20% of world energy consumption in the following way.

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Source: IEA 1.

In the United States as of 2015, residential buildings used 21% of total energy, and commercial buildings used 19% 2. Commercial buildings include offices, retail, school, hospitals, hotels, churches, warehouses, and public buildings, but not factories. The majority of residential and commercial energy goes to various forms of heating.

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Energy usage in American residential and commercial buildings. Sources: Residential Energy Consumption Survey 3 and Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey 4.

Household Energy Savings

American households use primary energy as follows and show the following potential for savings.

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Sources: Residential Energy Consumption Survey 3 on current energy by category. Potential savings is estimated as follows: LED lighting from Penning et al. 5, HVAC and building envelope retrofits from the IEA 6 and the Rockefeller Foundation and DB Climate Change Advisors 7, emerging HVAC and cooling technologies from Goetzler et al. 8, and ongoing appliance efficiency from Boustani et al. 9. For LED lighting, since the available data is not specific to residential lighting, overall lighting energy consumption figures for the residential and commercial sectors, reported by RECS 3 and CBECS 4 respectively, are used to apportion the LED savings potential to the residential sector.

Commercial Energy Savings

Commercial buildings in the United States use 17 EJ of primary energy as of 2012 4, broken down by the following categories. We estimate the following potential for energy savings.

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Overall energy consumption in commercial buildings in the United States and potential for savings. Overall energy is reported by the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey 4. Potential savings is estimated as follows: LED lighting from Penning et al. 5, HVAC and building envelope retrofits from the IEA 6 and the Rockefeller Foundation and DB Climate Change Advisors 7, emerging HVAC and cooling technologies from Goetzler et al. 8, and ongoing appliance efficiency from Boustani et al. 9. For LED lighting, since the available data is not specific to commercial lighting, overall lighting energy consumption figures for the residential and commercial sectors, reported by RECS 3 and CBECS 4 respectively, are used to apportion the LED savings potential to the commercial sector.

References

  1. International Energy Agency. "Transition to Sustainable Buildings". 2013. ↩

  2. U.S. Energy Information Administration. "Total Energy". Accessed October 24, 2018. ↩

  3. U. S. Energy Information Administration. "2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey". 2017. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. U. S. Energy Information Administration. "2012 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey". 2015. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. Penning, J., Stober, K., Taylor, V., Yamada, M. "Energy Savings Forecast of Solid-State Lighting in General Illumination Applications". Prepared by Navigant Consulting, Inc., prepared for Solid-State Lighting Program, Building Technologies Office, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. September 2016. ↩ ↩2

  6. International Energy Agency. "Technology Roadmap: Energy efficient building envelopes". 2013. ↩ ↩2

  7. Rockefeller Foundation, DB Climate Change Advisors. "United States Building Energy Efficiency Retrofits". March 2012. ↩ ↩2

  8. Goetzler, W., Guernsey, Young, J. "Research & Development Roadmap for Emerging HVAC Technologies". U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Office. Prepared by Navigant Consulting, Inc. October 2014. ↩ ↩2

  9. Boustani, A., Sahni, S., Gutowski, T., Graves. S. "Appliance Remanufacturing and Energy Savings". Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Laboratory, MIT Sloan School of Management. January 2010. ↩ ↩2