DOE's Commercial Buildings Program: A Market-Based Approach to Zero Energy Performance

The United States has approximately 2,665 square miles (6900 square kilometers) of commercial floor space and is projected to add 1,210 square miles (3130 square kilometers) of new floor space between now and 2030. Lighting, space conditioning and other energy service demands in commercial buildings currently require 35% of the nation’s electricity and 22% of its natural gas. Projected increases in floor space (and small increases in intensity) by EIA are also projected to add 580 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent gases by 2030. To help meet these challenges, the DOE Commercial Building Integration Program has embarked on a distinctly new strategy, while still focusing on a goal of marketable net-zero energy buildings (ZEB) by 2025. This paper provides the rationale and an overview of this new strategy as well as progress to date. One key aspect of this strategy is “National Energy Alliances” with commercial building owners and operators in combination with other organizations. This approach is designed to achieve strong market demand-pull for buildings with exemplary energy performance (50% and higher) in large numbers of new buildings. DOE is working collaboratively with both national energy alliances of commercial building subsectors, and with specific national accounts (a company with a portfolio of buildings) willing to take a leading role in designing, constructing, and replicating energy efficient buildings. The paper also discusses the systematic prioritization of DOE’s current and future commercial R&D portfolio to directly support DOE’s ZEB goal, and the systematic use of analysis to aid in decision making.