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Energy savings potential from improved building controls for the US commercial building sector

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Abstract

The US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored a study to determine the national savings achievable in the commercial buildings through widespread deployment of controls, elimination of faults, and use of better sensing. The study estimated savings from 34 measures in 9 building types and across 16 climates. These buildings are responsible for almost 57% of the US commercial building sector energy consumption. In addition to the individual measures, three packages of measures were created to estimate savings: (1) efficient building, (2) typical building, and (3) inefficient building. The results showed significant potential for energy savings across all building types and climates. The total site potential savings by building type aggregated across all climates for each measure varied between 0 and 16%. The total site potential savings aggregated across all building types and climates for each measure varied between 0 and 11%. The national potential site energy savings across all building types studied is 29%. Across all building types, the savings represent approximately 1393 PJ (1.32 quads) of site energy savings or 2912 PJ (2.76 quads) of primary (or source) energy savings. Extrapolating the results for other building types not analyzed as part of this study, the primary energy savings could be in the range of 4220 to 5275 PJ. For comparison, the total US primary energy consumption across all sectors of energy use was 102,762 PJ (97.4 quads) in 2015. This makes commercial building control improvements strategically important to sustained reductions in national energy consumption. To realize most of this potential savings, many gaps can be addressed through research development and deployment (RD&D), as recommended in this paper.

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Notes

  1. The US Energy Information Administration conducts a detailed survey of the commercial building stock every 4 years. The last survey was conducted in 2012. Although the survey was started in 2012, the detailed micro-data results were not released till late 2015 to early 2016. Therefore, this is the most current information that is openly available in public domain.

Abbreviations

AFDD:

automated fault detection and diagnostic.

AHU:

air-handling unit

ASHRAE:

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers

BAS:

building automation system

BTO:

Building Technology Office

CBECS:

Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey

CDD:

cooling degree day

DCV:

demand-controlled ventilation

DOE:

Department of Energy

DX:

direct expansion

EEM:

energy efficiency measure

EUI:

energy use intensity

HDD:

heating degree day

HVAC:

heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning

PBA:

principal building activity

RD&D:

research, development and deployment

VAV:

variable air volume

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Buildings Technologies Office of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for supporting this research and development effort. The authors would like to thank Dr. Marina Sofos and Mr. Joseph Hagerman, Technology Development Manager for their guidance and strong support of this work. At PNNL, we would like to acknowledge George Hernandez for technical guidance, Sriram Somasundaram and Andrew Nicholls for thoughtful comments and insights, and Susan Ennor for editorial support in preparing this document.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Nick Fernandez

  2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Srinivas Katipamula

  3. Department of Engineering Technology Charlotte, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, 28223, USA

    Weimin Wang

  4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, MATH/1160, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Yulong Xie

  5. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, MATH/1301, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Mingjie Zhao

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  1. Nick Fernandez
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Correspondence to Srinivas Katipamula.

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Fernandez, N., Katipamula, S., Wang, W. et al. Energy savings potential from improved building controls for the US commercial building sector. Energy Efficiency 11, 393–413 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-017-9569-5

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