I saw this blog post at Green Building: Jetson Green, with a nice summary of all energy use in the US, broken down by place of use, and then type of use.
Residential Energy Use (22% of total US use):
- 1% - Computers
- 5% - Cooking
- 5% - Wet clean
- 7% - Electronics
- 8% - Refrigeration
- 11% - Lights
- 12% - Cooling
- 12% - Water heat
- 31% - Heating
Commercial Energy Use (18% of total US use):
- 2% - Cooking
- 3% - Computers
- 4% - Refrigeration
- 6% - Office equipment
- 6% - Ventilation
- 7% - Water heat
- 13% - Cooling
- 14% - Heating
- 26% - Lighting
I really like to get these numbers into total relative terms. Let's look at the top offenders, Lighting, Water Heat, Cooling, and Heating, and multiply them out to see what piece of the total US pie they are...
- Residential Lights - 2.4% of all energy used in US, even counting industry and transportation
- Residential Cooling - 2.6% of all energy used
- Residential Water Heat - 2.6% of all energy used
- Residential Heating - 6.8% of all energy used
- Commercial Water Heat - 1.3% of all energy used
- Commercial Cooling - 2.3% of all energy used
- Commercial Heating - 2.5% of all energy used
- Commercial Lighting - 4.7% of all energy used
Okay, so Residential Heating and Commercial Lighting are the low-hanging fruit here.
Residential Heating would seem to be an insulation issue? Must find out more about this - I've practiced the last decade in a cooling climate, and the electric bill in the winter in Florida is *far* lower than the summer. What about airlocks for houses - older houses up north all seem to have them, but the newer condos and such don't. Obviously efforts to upgrade windows and make sure envelopes are sealed would pay off.
(On the topic of cooling climates: What is the proportion of population in heating climates vs cooling climates? It's hard to sell superwindows in a cooling climate - they don't seem to make enough difference - would something else, like a white/cool roof?)
Commercial Lighting - Can Revit run daylight studies for inside the building? Will it report footcandles delivered to a desk? I'm wondering about daylight shelves bouncing more light inside. As I learn more about what Revit can help predict, I'm more and more excited about it.
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