Commercial buildings that are participating in San Francisco’s energy benchmarking program have significantly reduced their power consumption – an average 7.9% drop in energy use across a portfolio of 176 properties since 2010. In addition to measuring what has been accomplished, the San Francisco Existing Commercial Buildings Performance Report reviewed a larger group of 817 buildings and found that the utilization of energy saving measures could save tens of millions of dollar over the projects’ lifetimes and add to the properties’ value.
Noting that over half of all GHG emissions in the city come from energy used in commercial and residential buildings and the fact that energy tends to be the largest controllable cost in facility operations, the report’s authors note that efficiency improvements not only help to reduce carbon emissions but also cut operating costs. Upgrades to building codes and voluntary market leadership initiatives such as incentive programs are also mentioned as major contributors to the achievement. The next stepis to seek out ways to engage the thousands of mid-to-smaller sized facilities in the Bay Area to join the benchmarking program and participate in energy audits to find optimization opportunities.
Looking for ways to cut energy use in your building? Check out these 5 areas that could be using too much power.
