by Shane Henson — November 23, 2012—The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) unveiled detailed energy usage information for more than 300 municipal buildings in its new 2011 Energy Benchmarking Report released to demonstrate how the city’s new building energy benchmarking ordinance can help both public and private property owners find ways to save energy and money and better understand how buildings use energy.
Passed in January 2011, the Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance Ordinance requires owners of commercial buildings 10,000 sq. ft. or larger to annually measure the energy performance of their buildings—a process known as benchmarking—and report energy use information to the city. It also requires owners to conduct energy audits of buildings every five years. Owners of buildings 25,000 sq. ft. and larger are already benchmarking energy use and filing reports with the city; while owners of buildings between 10,000 and 25,000 sq. ft. will begin benchmarking in 2013.
Through benchmarking energy use each year, and getting an energy audit every five years, decision-makers can compare their building to others, and have a plan for cost-effective improvements, says SFPUC.
The report generated as a result of the ordinance details the energy use of 305 city facilities, including libraries, medical clinics, police stations and more during 2011. Altogether, these buildings comprise 37 million sq. ft. of floor space, says SFPUC.
Key benchmarking findings include:
- In 2011, the 305 buildings analyzed used just under 3.5 million MMBtu of energy (electricity, natural gas and steam combined) and were responsible for 91,454 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions.
- The overall energy usage of buildings in 2011 declined 3.8 percent from 2010 and 1.1 percent from 2009. This translates into approximately $1 million less in energy costs in 2011 than the previous year.
- As expected, some building types are bigger energy users per square foot than others, for example hospitals and museums (higher energy intensity) versus fire stations and libraries (lower energy intensity).
- Of the 30 buildings that were eligible for energy ratings from the Environmental Protection Agency, 75 percent performed equal to or better than the national average for similar buildings; and 11 of those buildings performed in the top 25 percent nationwide—the threshold for the ENERGY STAR label.
San Francisco is one of six cities and two states with building energy benchmarking ordinances.
