Commercial Building Types
Commercial buildings account for a significant fraction of the total primary energy consumption in the US. In 2000, about 17 percent of total energy was consumed in the commercial sector. Past decades have seen alarming fluctuations in energy prices, reliability issues, and an increasing awareness of these buildings’ intensive consumption and the associated environmental impacts. Therefore, the building industry is recognizing the increasing importance of energy efficiency measures and on-site DG-CHP solutions.
The following two types of commercial buildings have been selected to illustrate the benefits of DG-CHP:
Schools are also included in the analysis as an Institutional building type representation.
In general, building types with high and fairly constant thermal loads and a high number of operating hours per year characterize the commercial and institutional applications that are more favorable to CHP. The total installed CHP in the U.S Commercial and Institutional sectors is represented by the following applications:
Sector |
Installed CHP (MW) |
District Energy/Utilities |
954.7 |
Governmental Buildings |
619.3 |
Hospitals |
491.4 |
Colleges and Universities |
414.0 |
Solid Waste Treatment Plants |
378.3 |
Offices Buildings |
235.4 |
Airports |
170.4 |
Health/Sport Centers |
164.3 |
Others |
380.9 |
TOTAL |
3394.7 |
Nearly half of the installed CHP capacity in the commercial/institutional sector is concentrated in only 3 states: New York, California, and Pennsylvania. Of the total CHP capacity in the U.S., only slightly more than 11 percent occurs in the commercial/institutional sectors. Although the commercial/institutional sector is about three quarters as large as the industrial sector in terms of electricity demand, the existing application of CHP is nine times larger in the industrial sector. Therefore, there exists a huge potential for a CHP expansion in the commercial/institutional building sector.