"Energy Use Intensities" (EUIs)

Abstract

Few in the ESCO indu str y are aware of it , but the ori ginal efforts
to define "N ormative EUls" and building energy performance ben ch-
mark s were made by the AlA and Syska & Henne ssy. Funded by the
U.s. D epartm ents of Energy & HUD , these benchmark s ha ve been used
by man y in the indu str y when assessing a bu ilding's ener gy sav ings
pot ent ial.
The orig inal effort to evo lve a database of non-resid ent ial energy
perf orman ce stan d ards was based on a survey of buildings con structed
in 1975 an d 1976. The objective was to establish a reference for ev alua-
tion of alternati ve ene rgy standard s to be used in ne w building de sign s.
On e of the goals was to pro vid e the industr y a logical prem ise from
which to proceed when empha sizing to owne rs the value of (altern a te)
energy efficient de sign s in future con stru ction.
Using generally acc ept ed statistical models, the re sult s of the analy-
sis we re pr esented as the m ean , the median, and the stand ard deviation
on design energy performance in kBtu / square foot / year for buildings
by typ e per climate zone . The need for a label for the end result of the
analytical efforts led to the term Normative EUI (Energy Use indexes).
Buil din gs constru cted in this time period are tod ay con sidered likely
candi da tes for sav ings ret rofits. The n orm s ar e still useful as reference
points, but not as pr edictors of sav ings