A study has been conducted to characterize the energy requirements of the office building stock in the United States. A set of building descriptions for use in energy simulation using the DOE-2 computer program was created. Limitations in available data made this a complicated task. Few sources of data are available on the physical and energy characteristics of the nation's building stock as a whole. The Nonresidential Building Energy Consumption Survey (NBECS) provides the most comprehensive and detailed source of such data. The NBECS was used intensively in developing the building descriptions, yet much information needed for simulation was not ascertained by the survey. This paper reviews the data needed to simulate the energy performance of buildings and identifies the variety of data sources that were used for this study. Several methods were used to synthesise information from disparate data sources in an attempt to provide a coherent picture of energy use in the office building sector. Applications of these methods are exemplified and described.

KEYWORDS: buildings, energy consumption, calculating, USA, performance, offices.