PNNL

Abstract

How energy is used in buildings under 10,000 sq ft When we think of energy efficiency opportunities in commercial buildings, it is easy to focus on the large office buildings and overlook the potential of small commercial buildings. The Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) tells us that there were approximately 4.5 million commercial buildings in 1995 comprising nearly 60 billion sq ft of space. If we define ?small? as buildings of 10,000 sq ft or less, we find that there are over 3.4 million of these buildings with a total of nearly 14 billion sq ft of floor space. In other words, ?small? buildings account for 75% of all commercial buildings by count and 25 percent of all commercial floorspace by square foot. Likewise, small commercial buildings use nearly 25% of the total energy consumed by the commercial building sector. So, though they may be small in size, the sheer number of ?small? commercial buildings makes them a large potential opportunity for energy efficiency.