Existing Buildings Study
BayREN’s Existing Buildings Study provides local governments with data about the existing buildings in their jurisdictions, their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and the impacts of energy efficiency and electrification measures that can be used to decarbonize the buildings.
Existing Building Study Dashboard
The dashboard contains information about the existing building stock in the Bay Area by jurisdiction, including numbers of buildings by use, vintage, and size. The dashboard also estimates energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for those buildings and estimates the energy and greenhouse gas reductions that could be achieved by implementing certain building improvements or packages of improvements.
Building Characteristics Analysis
This report collects and summarizes the available data on building characteristics such as HVAC and water heater types, ownership types, dryers, cooking fuels, and more for common building types in the Bay Area.
Building Type Explainer Cases
BayREN developed a series of high-level Explainer Cases to further explore the improvements needed to fully decarbonize some common Bay Area buildings and associated challenges. These Explainer Cases are linked below.
- Single Family Residential Buildings
- Multifamily Residential Buildings
- Office Buildings
- Mixed Use Buildings
Methodology
The data in the dashboard comes from a variety of sources, including assessor’s records, jurisdiction-specific data, NREL’s ResStock and ComStock, and more. Where data is not available, estimates are provided. The Buildings Data FAQ below provides an overview of the data assumptions and limitations, while detailed information on the data and methodology used for existing buildings are in the Buildings Methodology Report. The fourth tab of the dashboard allows the user to choose a variety of energy efficiency and electrification measures and packages in order to see their potential energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions. These estimates were developed using the data in the dashboard and the Building Characteristics Analysis together with models from ResStock and ComStock. More information is available in the Energy Measure Methodology Report.