Green design, improved equipment drive efficient performance.
Efforts to reduce commercial building energy use are seeing results, with data from the EIA showing that even with a 14% increase in facilities and 22% growth in floor space between 2003 and 2012, energy consumption rose just 7% and saw a small decline on a per square foot basis. The 2012 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) points to two main reasons for the slowdown in growth: an increased focus on energy efficiency in the design and construction phases of new buildings as well as improved equipment efficiency.
Office and education facilities stood out in the report as the only two building types that saw a change over the study period, each seeing a small decrease in energy consumption from 2003 to 2012. The CBECS also found that lighting’s energy consumption dropped 46% within the nine years, with CFL and LED replacements for incandescent fixtures responsible for most of the drop.
