A Look at Retail and Service Buildings
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
Retail and service buildings are most likely to use a furnace for heating, followed by individual space heaters and packaged heating; they are most likely to use packaged air conditioning, followed by central air conditioning and individual air conditioning units. There are few differences in heating and cooling equipment between the retail and service types, except for malls, where packaged heating and cooling are used in at least half of all malls.
Table 7: Number and percent of retail and service buildings (all and malls) by heating, cooling, and lighting equipment types
Lighting Types
Many (93 percent) retail and service buildings use standard fluorescent lights. A little less than half also use incandescent bulbs; other bulb types are not common in retail and service buildings.
Reference 3: Lighting Type Definitions
Related link: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Lighting Systems Research Group
Commercial Refrigeration Equipment
Commercial refrigeration equipment is found in 19 percent of all retail and service buildings—in 29 percent of retail buildings, 8 percent of service buildings, and 61 percent of malls.
Computers
There are approximately 4 million computers used in retail and service buildings. This is an average of 316 computers per million square feet, or 308 computers per thousand employees.
This information is from the CBECS special topic report: "Personal Computers and Computer Terminals in Commercial Buildings"
Energy-Related Space Functions
Ten percent of all retail and service buildings and 49 percent of all malls are reported to use space in the building for commercial food preparation, such as kitchens, steam tables, or warming areas.
Eight percent of all retail and service buildings are reported to use space for activities requiring large amounts of hot water, such as a commercial laundry room or dishwasher.
Continue: How do they measure up on conservation efforts?
Go to "What types of equipment do they use?" 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
URL: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/cbecs/pbawebsite/retailserv/retserv_whatequip.htm
Release
date: September 11, 2000
File last modified:
January 3, 2001