Paragraphs Environmental Design

Energy Use Intensity of Public Schools Across Climate Zones: Evidence from Public Benchmarking Data

Original Research · Environmental Design · 2024, Volume 2, Issue 2: 10–25

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24156937

Paulus Bawole*

Faculty of Architecture and Design, Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana, Yogyakarta

*Correspondence: paulus@staff.ukdw.ac.id

Received: June 2024 | Accepted: August 2024 | Published: September 2024

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Abstract

Climate-sensitive energy benchmarks can help school systems identify unusually intensive buildings, yet differences between climate groups are easily mistaken for differences in operational efficiency. This article presents an original secondary analysis of the United States Energy Information Administration's 2012 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, using its August 2016 public-use release and literature published before May 1, 2023. The analytical population comprises government-owned buildings classified as elementary/middle schools or high schools. Among 473 sampled buildings, 464 support comparisons across three disclosed climate groups; nine marine-climate observations remain in the national estimate but are not reported separately. Survey-weighted major-fuel site energy use intensity is estimated as a ratio of energy to floorspace, with uncertainty calculated using 197 jackknife replicate weights. Estimated intensity is 67.2 kBtu/ft²/year in very cold/cold climates, 56.8 in mixed-humid climates, and 46.8 in the combined hot-dry/mixed-dry/hot-humid group. The cold-to-combined-group difference is 20.4 kBtu/ft²/year, with an approximate 95% confidence interval of 12.8–28.0. Standardizing school subtypes reduces but does not remove the gradient. Electricity intensity moves in the opposite direction to total major-fuel intensity, while within-group distributions overlap. These findings support climate-sensitive screening but do not establish causal climate effects or identify inefficient individual schools. The article develops a benchmarking approach that distinguishes portfolio intensity from the typical building, preserves fuel-specific information, and treats educational service and indoor environmental quality as conditions of meaningful energy improvement.

Keywords: school buildings; energy use intensity; climate regions; CBECS; benchmarking

Citation

Bawole P. (2024). Energy Use Intensity of Public Schools Across Climate Zones: Evidence from Public Benchmarking Data. Paragraphs Environmental Design, 2(2), 10–25. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24156937

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