BUILDING ENERGY BENCHMARKING
|
.Buildings account for 33% of Seattle's core greenhouse gas emissions. Seattle's Energy Benchmarking Program requires owners of non-residential and multifamily buildings (20,000 square feet or larger) to track energy performance and annually report to the City of Seattle. From combing through the 2018 data-set, 3,491 buildings reported on their energy use. Highlighted below interesting insights in Seattle's building history from the data. The Office of Sustainability has produced multiple reports on this data as well, available here.
Building Type and Year Built Within the data, buildings are broken out into seven different categories and have data on year built. See the graph below to see number of buildings built per year by building type. Some interesting items to note:
|
|
Building Height and Year Built
When it was completed in 1912, Smith tower was the tallest building west of the Mississippi at 42 floors. The next building built in Seattle over 40 floors wasn’t built until 1969 (Westin Hotel), 57 years later (We are excluding the Space Needle in this summary). Though it may seem from looking at downtown that we’re constantly building high-rises, buildings in Seattle are typically not high-rises: within the full data-set of 3,491 buildings, about 90% of them are six stories or less, with four stories being the most frequent building height. Buildings above 20 stories are all found in downtown Seattle and First Hill, except for three outliers: two in U-district (University Tower Plaza and UW Tower Building Complex) and one on Lake Washington in Madison Park (Washington View Towers). These were all built before 1975 and would not be permitted under current zoning codes.
When it was completed in 1912, Smith tower was the tallest building west of the Mississippi at 42 floors. The next building built in Seattle over 40 floors wasn’t built until 1969 (Westin Hotel), 57 years later (We are excluding the Space Needle in this summary). Though it may seem from looking at downtown that we’re constantly building high-rises, buildings in Seattle are typically not high-rises: within the full data-set of 3,491 buildings, about 90% of them are six stories or less, with four stories being the most frequent building height. Buildings above 20 stories are all found in downtown Seattle and First Hill, except for three outliers: two in U-district (University Tower Plaza and UW Tower Building Complex) and one on Lake Washington in Madison Park (Washington View Towers). These were all built before 1975 and would not be permitted under current zoning codes.
Energy Efficiency by Building Type
A little over half of the buildings in the data set are multifamily buildings. For multifamily homes, energy use per square foot has been declining. Is this because of increased efficiency or because buildings are being built taller than before and are inherently more efficient?
Major outliers for multifamily energy use.
A little over half of the buildings in the data set are multifamily buildings. For multifamily homes, energy use per square foot has been declining. Is this because of increased efficiency or because buildings are being built taller than before and are inherently more efficient?
Major outliers for multifamily energy use.
Let's look at energy use at grocery stores in more detail. The data-set has energy use data for 38 grocery stores. There are many factors that affect the energy use of a grocery store per square foot, with key drivers being the energy efficiency and size of the building, how much of the store is refrigerated/frozen/prepared food versus dry goods, if the building is standalone or part of a larger complex. Is their any correlation between the age of the building an energy use intensity? Not really.
