Research has recently been completed to characterize typical small commercial buildings existing in the United States and to assess the potential of retrofit measures to reduce energy use and peak electric demand. The focus has been on commercial buildings that will be eligible under the Commercial and Apartment Conservation Service (CACS) Program mandated by Congress, i.e., with annual energy consumption less than 48 thousand kWh of electricity and 12 thousand therms of any other fuel.

Estimates of retrofit energy savings were based on representative physical and energy-use characteristics selected from information collected on 291 small commercial buildings in nine cities. Energy-use profiles varied significantly with building type and location, but total annual energy savings of 26 to 49% were predicted from use of five common retrofit measures in modern strip-type and older two-story building models. Peak electric demand ranged from 15 to 50 kW for these models, with predicted retrofit savings of 4 to 29 kW.

Units: I-P