The data in the spreadsheets were developed from the 1992 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) data of the EIA (1995). The data benchmark information is given in two spreadsheets for two categories of fuel: electricity and non-electric fuels. The reasons for this categorization include: conversion of electricity use to energy values such as kJ or Btu often involves controversy due to electrical generation - transmission - distribution loss issues, and the factors affecting electricity use are typically different than those affecting other fuels.
The benchmarking spreadsheets provided allow you to identify where your specific office building ranks relative to others. They calculate the energy use intensity (EUI) of your building, provide the typical (median) EUI for office buildings with the same characteristics as yours, and identify where your building's performance ranks compared to others (percentile of EUI). They go beyond the customary normalization by floor area and account for performance differences due to variations in worker density, the number of personal computers, operating hours, occupancy type, and heating fuel types. Beyond floor area, these characteristics were found to be the most common and most important drivers of electric and non-electric energy use in US office buildings. Location effects are accounted for by specifying the census division corresponding to your building location.
