November – Energy
Energy efficiency has been a paramount concern of the Green Building movement from the beginning. The most LEED points by far are in the Energy and Atmosphere category. Although we are keenly interested in the wellness of the environments we create and the resiliency of our built environment, Energy remains an important issue, as it should. Three recently released reports make the same unequivocal point – to avert global catastrophe we need to rapidly curtail greenhouse gas emissions that derive in large part from building construction and operations. Those reports are:
IPCC Special Report on Global Warming, dated October 2018
WWF Living Planet Report, dated Oct. 30, 2018
U.S. government National Climate Assessment, released Friday, Nov. 23, 2018
The projects closest to home are our own offices. During 2018, we gathered energy-related utility information for the past year on our U.S. offices. In some cases, we have actual bills, and in others we had to estimate our office energy use from total building bills. We calculated our overall office Energy Use Intensity (EUI) and compared that to industry standards.
Key Findings
• Our office average Energy Use Intensity is 63 kBtu/s.f./yr. The average U.S. office (less than 10,000 s.f.) is approximately 74 kBtu/s.f./yr and 10,000 s.f. to 100,000 s.f. is approx. 90 kBtu/s.f./yr
• Our most energy efficient office per s.f. is Culver City at 32 kBtu/s.f./yr and our least energy efficient office is Las Vegas at 94 kBtu/s.f./yr. This is largely due to climate differences and operational practices of each office.
• Only Minneapolis, Denver, and Culver City use natural gas for heating.
• All our U.S. offices used a combined 972,178 kWhrs. and 10,277 therms.
RECOMMENDATIONS
• Collect monthly utility data from every office where available and enter into database.
• Run yearly Energy Use Intensity model for every office location.
• Understand each offices lighting, plug load, and HVAC controls and control sequence and make sure it is optimized to occupancy schedule for each office.
