Room-scale profiles of space use and electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings

Understanding activities within premises can contribute to a fuller understanding of energy use within buildings and the building stock. Analysis of detailed surveys of over 300 non-domestic premises has produced empirical room-scale spaceuse profiles for 16 premises types. Electricity consumption and internal gains resulting from the operation of electrical appliances have been characterized for 295 combinations of internal space use and premises activity type. For each combination, the outputs include the energy-use intensity (kWh/m2/year) profiles for: overall appliance consumption; 14 end uses of appliances (e.g. lighting, catering, computing); and 18 groups of appliance activity descriptions (e.g. sales, office work, process). These profiles of characteristics were created for application in an urban-scale energy-use model, based upon premises floor space recorded in property taxation data, without the need for detailed energy surveys of premises. Appliance electricity consumption and internal gains are revealed at a finer spatial resolution than previous methods, indicating the diversity of energy-use characteristics in greater detail than for entire homogenized premises or premises types. This method may be used for evaluating the current electricity consumption and consequent carbon emissions from the non-domestic building stock (or parts thereof) and for estimating the effects of potential interventions.