How Much Electricity Does An Office Use?

Large office buildings in the United States (those with more than 100,000 square feet) consume an average of 20 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and 24 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot per year.

What is the energy consumption of a tiny office?

Small and medium office buildings (under 100,000 square feet) in the United States use an average of 15 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and 38 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot each year.

What is the energy consumption of commercial buildings?

By 2030, CBI’s partnership, workforce, evaluation tools, and research and development portfolios aim to reduce commercial building energy consumption intensity by 30% from 2010 levels and achieve zero commercial building-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. CBI works to accelerate the adoption of commercial building solutions that improve building energy performance, enable energy reliability and affordability, and maintain comfortable, healthy, and productive indoor environments despite disruptive events like natural disasters, infectious disease spread, and grid outages.

  • Commercial buildings are designed and run in such a way that they can adapt and develop over time to achieve optimal energy efficiency and save company energy expenses.
  • Commercial buildings provide tenant productivity, safety, and health by providing comfortable conditions and dependable building services.
  • To enable renewable energy production, distribution, and transmission, commercial buildings serve as a hub for integrated energy flexibility, generation, and storage.

Commercial Building Basics

Commercial buildings, which comprise all nonresidential structures as well as residential buildings of three floors or more, are owned, operated, and used by the federal, state, and municipal governments, as well as private corporations. Commercial structures come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and they are employed in a variety of ways. They range from the local dry cleaner to hospitals and college campuses, as well as massive data centers and skyscrapers.

Businesses, the federal government, state governments, and local governments own, operate, and use 93 billion square feet of real estate in the United States1 and consume 18 percent (or 18 quadrillion Btu) of the country’s primary energy,2 more than all of Canada’s energy consumption, and spend $190 billion on energy each year. Commercial buildings use 13.6 quads of power (or 35% of all electricity utilized in the United States) and emit 826 million metric tons of CO2 (16 percent of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions). 4 Reducing energy use in commercial buildings would have a huge positive impact on the environment and energy security, as well as saving money that might be utilized to help American businesses expand. Furthermore, commercial building energy efficiency creates good, skilled, and needed jobs in construction and technology, such as engineers, commissioning agents, energy managers, and building operators.

Energy Savings Potential in Retrofit and New Buildings

Existing and new business buildings have significant potential to cut energy use. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, 30 percent of the energy consumed in commercial buildings is wasted.

Understanding what motivates businesses to make efficiency improvements is critical to drastically improving commercial building energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Through the Better Buildings Initiative, CBI collaborates with industry, businesses, and other stakeholders to find, document, and develop intuitive, simple, and effective solutions for commercial building stakeholders.

1 Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy. Annual Energy Outlook for the Year 2020 Table 5: Key Indicators and Consumption in the Commercial Sector. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo. On the 22nd of April, 2020, I was able to get a hold of

2 Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy. Annual Energy Outlook for the Year 2020 Energy Consumption by Sector and Source (Table A2). https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/. On the 22nd of April, 2020, I was able to get a hold of

4 Energy Information Administration of the United States Department of Energy. Annual Energy Outlook for the Year 2020 Table No. 18 Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy by Sector and Source. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo. On the 22nd of April, 2020, I was able to get a hold of

What is the energy consumption of a home office?

Severin Borenstein, an energy economist and head of the University of California Energy Institute, thinks that doing everything remotely might save the average home up to $5 per day, or roughly $100 per month. According to our analysis, inhabitants of major metro regions may anticipate to spend $20 to $40 extra per month on energy expenses if they work from home during the pandemic.

Where do the additional costs come from? Here are a few of the perpetrators:

Your HVAC system is your home’s biggest energy hog, and it’s responsible for the majority of the increase in your power bill. Keeping your home pleasant during the day takes a lot of extra energy, especially during the summer. Change the filter in your air conditioner and make use of your window curtains and fans to keep your bill from skyrocketing. The colder you can keep your home naturally, the less you’ll have to use your air conditioner.

Take a look at your energy bill if you feel like you should be saving more money when working remotely.

As adults work from home and children take online programs, the average family of four will pay approximately $10 per month to keep all of their screens lit. Working on a laptop computer remotely consumes roughly 53 kWh of electricity each year. If the cost of power is $0.10 per kWh, the total cost is $5.30. Desktop computers consume more energy, consuming around 275 kWh per year (at a cost of $27.50). That may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that many devices are used for longer periods of time, it adds up rapidly.

Unplug devices when you’re not using them to make sure you’re getting the most out of your home office equipment. Your computer’s built-in energy-efficiency settings are likely to save you money as well.

Admit it: you’ve been binge-watching a lot more TV lately. We’ve all done it. While this is a terrific way to kill time and keep up with your coworkers, it does use energy. For example, watching a 65-inch Samsung television for five hours will use 0.36 kWh of electricity. If we remain with our prior energy cost of $0.10/kWh, each marathon TV session will add $0.03 to your account.

Take a look at your energy bill if you feel like you should be saving more money when working remotely. Employers, in some respects, gain from remote work since they save money on things like power, office supplies, meals, and, in certain situations, real estate. Some employers are even considering new benefits to assist employees cover the additional costs of working from home, such as subsidizing their energy bills. Interested? While working remotely, send a message to your workplace advocating for clean energy benefits.

How many kWh do you use on a daily basis?

How many kWh does a house use each day is a typical question. The quantity of kWh you use is determined by the following factors:

  • How big is your house?
  • Your residence’s age (especially related to insulation)
  • There are a lot of people who live there.
  • Appliances’ kind, number, and age
  • How do you keep your house warm or cool?
  • Whether you have a swimming pool or not
  • The environment in which you live

The average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential home customer in 2017 was 10,399 kilowatt hours (kWh), or 867 kWh per month, according to the EIA. This translates to 28.9 kWh per day (867 kWh / 30 days) for the average household electricity consumption.

  • In Texas, the average annual household power use is 14,112 kWh. This is a 36 percent increase over the national average.
  • In Texas, the average household consumes 1,176 kWh per month.
  • The average daily kilowatt usage in Texas is 39.2 kWh.

In a month, how much electricity does a business consume?

In the United States, the average monthly energy consumption for commercial premises was 6,066 kilowatt-hours in 2019. (kWh).

How many kilowatts does a structure consume?

The average number of kilowatt hours per square foot for a commercial structure is roughly 22.5, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

The following is a summary of how that energy is utilized:

  • Refrigeration and equipment use approximately 8 kWh/square foot.
  • Lighting consumes around 7 kWh/square foot.
  • Cooling equipment consumes around 3 kWh/square foot.
  • Heating equipment consumes around 2 kWh/square foot.
  • Ventilation consumes approximately 2 kWh/square foot.
  • In the neighborhood of
  • Hot water heating consumes 5 kWh/square foot.

While commercial building energy consumption per square foot is a common question, it isn’t the one you should be asking. Different types of operations are housed in varied types of buildings, which have different energy profiles. Office buildings, for example, spend most of their energy on lighting, ventilation, and air conditioning in order to provide a comfortable, healthy, and ideal working environment for its employees. A food manufacturing facility’s primary energy expenditure, on the other hand, is related to its production processes; as a result, its energy needs are primarily focused on things like steam systems, ovens, furnaces, refrigeration units, and more, which all account for the majority of this industry’s energy consumption.

So, for a facility in my industry, what is the typical building energy use per square foot?

The Department of Energy also looked at the energy intensity of different industries and generated a graphic that shows the average kWh per square foot. Here are a handful of the 17 industries that were investigated:

  • A food service facility consumes approximately 56 kWh/square foot.
  • On average, a shopping mall consumes 23 kWh per square foot.
  • A public assembly building uses about 15 kWh per square foot of space.
  • A warehouse uses about 9 kWh per square foot of space.

Want the full DOE chart showing energy intensity and electricity consumption by industry? Download our free Energy Benchmarking Report to see the average energy use of your industry.

In addition, the DOE has split down total average power usage per square foot for commercial buildings into the average amount spent per system (lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, etc.) to assist you better understand what activities are involved with that energy usage.

The energy usage of a typical industrial facility, for example, is broken down as follows:

  • Lighting consumes around 10 kWh/square foot.
  • Refrigeration and equipment use around 9 kWh/square foot.
  • Heating consumes approximately 5 kWh/square foot.
  • Cooling consumes approximately 3 kWh/square foot.
  • Ventilation uses about 2 kWh/square foot of energy.

Here’s how a retail building’s breakdown looks like:

  • Lighting consumes around 9 kWh/square foot.
  • Refrigeration and equipment use approximately 5 kWh/square foot.
  • Cooling consumes approximately 3.5 kWh/square foot.
  • In the neighborhood of
  • Heating consumes 75 kWh per square foot.
  • In the neighborhood of
  • Hot water heating consumes 25 kWh/square foot.

What in a structure consumes the most electricity?

Lighting is the most common end-use of power in commercial buildings, and many buildings use energy-efficient light sources and innovative lighting technology to save energy. Almost every business structure has some form of illumination. Warehouses and abandoned buildings are examples of structures that lack lighting.

How can you figure out how much energy a structure uses?

Energy calculations are simple, as any engineer knows. The kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a measure of electrical energy that is calculated by multiplying the power consumption (in kilowatts, kW) by the number of hours spent. The total energy cost is calculated by multiplying that figure by the cost per kWh.

In an office, what consumes the most electricity?

If you own a business with a physical location, you may be wondering how much electricity a computer consumes. After all, you’re going to have a lot of them, so it’s important becoming acquainted with the expenses. Of course, the electrical equipment that use the most energy in your office will vary depending on the technology you use and how you use it. However, these are some of the most energy-intensive office tasks:

  • 4,000W of air conditioning
  • 100W desktop PCs
  • 70W photocopiers (on standby)
  • 50W printers (standby)

In an office, what consumes the most electricity?

Identify the top energy draining equipment to begin making your home office more energy efficient and lowering your energy expenses.

Your Computer

When it comes to draining energy in a home office, computers are at the top of the list! You might not think that leaving your computer on overnight or over the weekend consumes a significant amount of energy, but it does. Because computer monitors consume about 100 watts per day, merely turning off your computer will reduce your home office’s energy bill.

Besides turning off PCs, you may want to trade in an energy-draining desktop computer for a laptop computer, which consumes significantly less energy than a desktop.

Lighting

In a home office, adequate lighting is essential so that you don’t strain your eyes and can stay focused, alert, and productive. However, it’s possible that lighting your home office uses more energy than you realize.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), lighting alone consumed over 273 billion kilowatt-hours of power in 2017, accounting for almost 10% of total energy consumption in both residential and commercial sectors.