Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States

Collecting energy use data is becoming common practice in the buildings sector. Current applications include understanding regional energy flows in the building stock, and tracking energy performance of individual buildings. Beyond these, research and commercial applications of building energy data...

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Main Authors: Michael D. Sohn, Laurel N. Dunn
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Built Environment
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2019.00105/full
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author Michael D. Sohn
Laurel N. Dunn
author_facet Michael D. Sohn
Laurel N. Dunn
author_sort Michael D. Sohn
collection DOAJ
description Collecting energy use data is becoming common practice in the buildings sector. Current applications include understanding regional energy flows in the building stock, and tracking energy performance of individual buildings. Beyond these, research and commercial applications of building energy data are as yet unexplored. Research is needed to provide insight into the data being collected, to identify appropriate applications of these data, and opportunities to improve data collection efforts. To that end, we present an exploratory analysis of the existing public large-scale building energy datasets, focusing on the two largest datasets: the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey and the Building Performance Database. We provide backgound information on both datasets, present an overview of the detail and sparsity of information in each, and report on the relationships we observe between data fields included in the two datasets, and compare our findings with results from the literature. We discuss how these results could be applied to support energy efficiency investments, and opportunities to improve data collection efforts to ensure that the data collected are adequate to provide insight into building energy consumption and support novel applications of building energy data.
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spelling doaj.art-cba262cc8f9d4e1780c65f31c657b4312022-12-21T21:43:30ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Built Environment2297-33622019-09-01510.3389/fbuil.2019.00105465876Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United StatesMichael D. Sohn0Laurel N. Dunn1Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United StatesCollecting energy use data is becoming common practice in the buildings sector. Current applications include understanding regional energy flows in the building stock, and tracking energy performance of individual buildings. Beyond these, research and commercial applications of building energy data are as yet unexplored. Research is needed to provide insight into the data being collected, to identify appropriate applications of these data, and opportunities to improve data collection efforts. To that end, we present an exploratory analysis of the existing public large-scale building energy datasets, focusing on the two largest datasets: the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey and the Building Performance Database. We provide backgound information on both datasets, present an overview of the detail and sparsity of information in each, and report on the relationships we observe between data fields included in the two datasets, and compare our findings with results from the literature. We discuss how these results could be applied to support energy efficiency investments, and opportunities to improve data collection efforts to ensure that the data collected are adequate to provide insight into building energy consumption and support novel applications of building energy data.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2019.00105/fullbuilding performance databasecommercial buildings energy consumption surveybuilding energy databuilding energy benchmarkingexploratory data analysis
spellingShingle Michael D. Sohn
Laurel N. Dunn
Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
Frontiers in Built Environment
building performance database
commercial buildings energy consumption survey
building energy data
building energy benchmarking
exploratory data analysis
title Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
title_full Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
title_fullStr Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
title_full_unstemmed Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
title_short Exploratory Analysis of Energy Use Across Building Types and Geographic Regions in the United States
title_sort exploratory analysis of energy use across building types and geographic regions in the united states
topic building performance database
commercial buildings energy consumption survey
building energy data
building energy benchmarking
exploratory data analysis
url https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2019.00105/full
work_keys_str_mv AT michaeldsohn exploratoryanalysisofenergyuseacrossbuildingtypesandgeographicregionsintheunitedstates
AT laurelndunn exploratoryanalysisofenergyuseacrossbuildingtypesandgeographicregionsintheunitedstates