CBECS - Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey

General description

1. Database primary purpose - To collect information on the stock of U.S. commercial buildings (i.e., buildings in which at least half of the floorspace is used for a purpose that is not residential, industrial, or agricultural), including their energy-related building characteristics and energy usage data (consumption and expenditures). In clinical context, this data can be useful for research questions environmental impact related based on energy consumption of hospitals and waste management.
2. Overall data type - Health facilities, economics, environment
3. Dataset type - Longitudinal
4. Data source - Survey
5. Data level - Buildings (commercial, schools, hospitals, etc) level
6. Geographic location of the data collection sites - United States
7. Sponsor, manager, or home institution - U.S. Energy Information Administration
8. Date range - 2003, 2012, 2018
9. Geolocation data - Census region and division
10. Dates - Year constructed
11. Longitudinal tracking - Track region and division
12. Variables that are uniquely present in this dataset - Building characteristics tables contain the number of buildings and amount of floorspace for structural and energy-related characteristics of buildings. Consumption and expenditures tables contain both total and end-use energy data by the major energy sources.

Data dictionary

To access the CBECS data dictionary, click here

Variable categories

1. Building owners and managers (for benchmarking)
2. Energy modelers (for forecasting)
3. Product developers (to gauge market potential)
4. Government leaders (to formulate policy)
5. Energy Star (as the foundation for their rating system targets)

Linkage to other datasets

• Linkages can be established for any dataset that might have geolocation data (i.e., Census region and division)