A Look at Office Buildings
Are they on multibuilding complexes?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
What types of equipment do they use?
What types of equipment do they use?
Heating and Cooling Equipment
Reference 2: Heating and Cooling Equipment Definitions
Office buildings use mostly furnaces or packaged heating for heating the building and central air-conditioners or packaged air-conditioning for cooling the building. Individual space heaters are often used as a secondary heating device.
The size of the building is a major determinant of the type of heating or cooling equipment used. Small (1,001 to 5,000 square feet) office buildings use either furnaces, packaged heating, or heat pumps as their main heating equipment and either central air conditioning, packaged units, or heat pumps for their main cooling equipment. Medium (5,001 to 50,000 square feet) office buildings also use these equipment types but may also use boilers for heating or central chillers for cooling. The majority of large office buildings use boilers or district heat as their main heating equipment and central chillers or packaged cooling as their main cooling equipment (with some using district chilled water).
Table 7: Number and percent of office buildings in each size category by heating, cooling, and lighting equipment types
Lighting Types
Virtually all office buildings use standard fluorescent lights. About two-thirds also use incandescent bulbs; only a small number use compact fluorescent, high-intensity discharge, or halogen lighting.
Reference 3: Lighting Type Definitions
Related link: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Lighting Systems Research Group
Commercial Refrigeration Equipment
Commercial refrigeration equipment is not commonly found in office buildings; only 4 percent of office buildings have any commercial refrigeration.
Computers
There are very few office buildings without at least one computer. Nearly half (21.2 million) of all computers are located in office buildings. In office buildings, there are 797 computers for every 1000 employees; only education buildings have more computers per employee than this. Large office buildings (over 50,000 square feet) contain 13.3 million computers, or 833 computers for every thousand workers.
This information is from the CBECS special topic report: "Personal Computers and Computer Terminals in Commercial Buildings"
Continue: How do they measure up on conservation efforts?
Go to "What types of equipment do they use?" for other building types:
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/office/office_whatequip.htm
Release
date: September 11, 2000
File last modified:
January 3, 2001