Is the BPD Nationally Representative? A Comparison of the Building Performance Database to the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
The Building Performance Database (BPD) contains building characteristics and energy use data that can be used to benchmark buildings against their peers. However, the BPD contains data from any source that was willing to contribute data, regardless of whether that dataset is representative of the national building stock. This report explores the representativeness of the BPD. Namely, we compared the BPD to the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), which was designed to be a nationally representative sample of buildings. We divided the datasets into subgroups based on building type and location, we focused on three key variables (floor area, site energy use intensity, and source energy use intensity), and we compared their statistical properties in the BPD to the CBECS. We found that while the BPD contains significantly more buildings with larger floor areas, the BPD is reasonably representative in terms of site and source energy use intensity and does not appear to have a systemic bias towards energy efficient buildings.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1526565
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-2001198; ark:/13030/qt8m85301c
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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