Local, state and the federal government excel at energy efficiency

The government is a lot of things. One of them is a building owner. Indeed, owning and operating facilities are two of the things it does most.

According the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an arm of the government – at the local, state or federal level – owns about 14 percent of the commercial buildings in the United States. The breakdown is that about 4 percent of government buildings are federally owned, 24 percent are owned by the state and 72 percent are locally owned.

That’s interesting. What is even more interesting is that those buildings are far more energy efficient than non-governmental buildings, at least as of 2012. The EIA says that from 2003 to 2012 the government reduced the average energy consumption per square foot of the buildings it controlled from 105,300 Btus per square foot (Btu/sqft) to 81,200 Btu/sqft. Non-governmental commercial buildings also moved in the right direction – but not by as much. Energy intensity in these structures shrank by 12 percent, from 91,000 Btu/sqft to 80,000 Btu/sqft.

Read the full story. (Energy Manager Today)