A Look at Education Buildings
Are they on multibuilding complexes?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
Education buildings account for 12 percent of all commercial energy consumption, using a total of 614 trillion Btu of combined site electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, and district steam or hot water. They are the third highest consumer of total energy of all the commercial building types (see total energy figure on home page).
Natural gas and electricity are the predominant fuels used in education buildings, with natural gas used just slightly more than electricity. Education buildings are more likely to use district heat than most building types.
Site electricity is the amount of electricity consumed within the building; electricity use can also be expressed as primary electricity, which includes the energy consumed in generating and transmitting electricity. Education buildings used 666 trillion Btu of primary electricity, which brings the total energy consumption for education buildings up to 1,059 trillion Btu, or 10 percent of total primary consumption for all commercial buildings.
The majority of energy use in education buildings is for space heating, with lighting and water heating about equal as the next most energy-consuming uses.
Education buildings use an average of 2.0 billion Btu per building and have an energy intensity of 79.3 thousand Btu per square foot. This intensity is one of the lower intensities among all commercial building types (see total energy per square foot figure on home page).
One of the reasons that education buildings have a relatively low energy intensity is that they don't operate for as many hours a day as some other building types; after taking into account the number of hours that the building is in use, education buildings go from being a little below average in energy intensity to being a little above average in intensity (see total energy per square foot per hour on home page).
Small (1,001 to 5,000 square feet) education buildings use energy more intensively than larger education buildings, possibly because education buildings use a lot of their energy for space heating and small buildings would be more affected by cold weather than larger buildings because they have relatively more exterior wall surface area compared with interior space.
However, as shown in "Are they on multibuilding complexes?," large buildings on college or university campuses use energy intensively. Only 13 percent of large education buildings are found on these campuses, but they tend to be intensive energy users.
Table 5: Major fuel consumption and cost by size category
Of all the commercial building types, education buildings have the third highest energy expenditures—$7.1 billion per year—most of this for electricity. The energy expenditures in education buildings account for 10 percent of energy expenditures in commercial buildings.
On average, $0.92 per square foot is spent on energy in education buildings, less than the national average for energy usage in commercial buildings ($1.19 per square foot).
Forecasts
The Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting (OIAF) uses CBECS data to make commercial sector energy use projections. For estimates of commercial building consumption (and floorspace) from 1998 to 2020, see Table 22 of Supplement Tables to the AEO2000.
Continue: How do they use electricity?
Go to "How do they use energy and how much does it cost?" for other building types:
- Office
- Education
- Health Care
- Retail and Service
- Food Service
Specific questions may be directed to:
Joelle Davis Michaels
joelle.michaels@eia.doe.gov
CBECS Manager
Phone:
(202) 586-8952
FAX:
(202) 586-0018
URL: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/cbecs/pbawebsite/education/educ_howuseenergy.htm
Release
date: August 2, 2000
File last modified:
January 3, 2001