Journal article
Empowering Owner-Operators of Small and Medium Commercial Buildings to Identify Energy Retrofit Opportunities
ENERGIES, v 16(17), 6191
Sep 2023
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Small and medium commercial buildings account for nearly half of the energy consumed by commercial buildings in the United States. While energy retrofits can significantly reduce building energy consumption, buildings' owners often lack the capital and experience to perform detailed energy audits and retrofit assessments. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a low-investment, bottom-up and simplified methodology for identifying energy retrofit opportunities that benefit the owners of small and medium sized office buildings In particular, the paper addresses small and medium commercial buildings on a university campus as a proof-of-concept for other owner-operators that have small and medium commercial facilities in their portfolio. The methodology consists of an eight-step framework using publicly-available and simplified tools. While energy audits and retrofit opportunity assessments are not new, a low-cost methodology for owner-operators of small and medium commercial buildings to analyze energy consumption and identify retrofit opportunities represents a contribution to knowledge. A medium office building on a university campus in Arizona served as a case study to validate the methodology. The case study showed a maximum potential energy reduction of an estimated 50%, but the figure varies based on the types of retrofit (deep versus light), energy conservation measures selected and implemented, invested resources, and interactive effects between measures. This methodology is extensible to other owner-operators that have building utility data and would like to perform retrofit opportunity assessments themselves.
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Details
- Title
- Empowering Owner-Operators of Small and Medium Commercial Buildings to Identify Energy Retrofit Opportunities
- Publication Details
- ENERGIES, v 16(17), 6191
- Publisher
- MDPI; BASEL
- Grant note
- The authors thank the facility management staff that answered questions about energy consumption when they arose.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001062017000001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85170401754
- Other Identifier
- 991021861203104721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Energy & Fuels