Anyone else finding CBECS data increasingly unreliable for office building benchmarks? Working with a client in Richmond served by Dominion Energy, and their 95 kBtu/sq ft EUI looks terrible against CBECS median of 68 kBtu/sq ft. But when I compare to actual buildings in our portfolio, 95 is pretty typical for older Class B office space. Starting to think CBECS is skewed toward newer, more efficient buildings. What are you all using for realistic benchmarks?
Office building EUI benchmarks - CBECS vs reality
Bill, I've moved away from CBECS for exactly that reason. Here in Charlotte with Duke Energy, I'm seeing similar EUI numbers for pre-1980 office buildings. I now use a combination of Energy Star Portfolio Manager peer comparisons and regional utility benchmarking studies. Duke actually publishes some good commercial benchmarks that are more realistic than national averages. Have you checked if Dominion has similar resources?
Derek's right about utility-specific benchmarks being more accurate. Out here in San Jose with PG&E, the climate and building vintage make national benchmarks almost useless. I've built my own database over 15 years of audits - now have about 200 buildings to compare against. Much more valuable than CBECS. Age, HVAC type, and occupancy density matter way more than the national studies capture.
This is why I love this forum - real world data beats academic studies every time. Wayne here in Charlotte, and I've found Duke's benchmarks Derek mentioned are solid but still conservative. For Class B office space built before 1990, 90-100 kBtu/sq ft is completely normal. The real value is trending year-over-year performance rather than hitting some arbitrary benchmark number.