ComStock Documentation
ComStock Documentation
Version 1
Andrew Parker, Henry Horsey, Matthew Dahlhausen,
Marlena Praprost, Christopher CaraDonna, Amy LeBar,
and Lauren Klun
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Suggested Citation
Parker, Andrew, Henry Horsey, Matthew Dahlhausen, Marlena Praprost, Christopher
CaraDonna, Amy LeBar, and Lauren Klun. 2023. ComStock Reference Documentation:
Version 1. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-5500-83819.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/83819.pdf.
This work was authored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable
Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding
provided by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Building
Technologies Office. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S.
Government.
Cover Photos by Dennis Schroeder: (clockwise, left to right) NREL 51934, NREL 45897, NREL 42160, NREL 45891, NREL 48097,
NREL 46526.
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Acknowledgments
ComStock owes its conceptual underpinnings to ResStockTM , particularly to the work of ResStock’s originators
Craig Christensen, Scott Horowitz, and Eric Wilson of NREL. ComStock has been developed over many years, and
has benefited from the leadership and guidance of many DOE staff, including Jason Hartke, Andrew Burr, Amy
Jiron, Harry Bergmann, and Amir Roth. Additionally, ComStock has been improved upon through work for parties
outside of DOE, most notably the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, where support and feedback from
Armen Saiyan has been instrumental in key improvements to the tool. Lastly, ComStock would not be possible with-
out the EnergyPlusTM whole-building energy modeling tool and the OpenStudio® Software Development Kit, two
pieces of software that are the result of many years of hard work by a large number of people at DOE, the national
laboratories, and the private sector.
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
List of Acronyms
AAMA American Architectural Manufacturers Association
AC air conditioner or air conditioning
ACC air-cooled chiller
ADA Americans with Disabilities Act
AER average emissions rate
AFUE annual fuel utilization efficiency
AHU air handling unit
AMI Advanced Metering Infrastructure
AMY actual meteorological year
ASHP air-source heat pump
ASHRAE American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
AWS Amazon Web Services
BAS building automation system
BEM building energy model
BPR base-to-peak ratio
BTU British thermal unit
CAEUS California End Use Survey
CAPFT capacity as a function of temperature
CBECS Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey
CBSA Commercial Building Stock Assessment
CEC California Energy Commission
CEJST Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool
CFL compact fluorescent light
cfm cubic feet per minute
CHW chilled water
CMU concrete masonry unit
COP coefficient of performance
CPUC California Public Utilities Commission
CU coefficient of utilization
CW condenser water
CZ climate zone
DCV demand control ventilation
DEER Database of Energy Efficiency Resources
DOAS dedicated outdoor air system
DOE U.S. Department of Energy
DST daylight saving time
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DX direct expansion
EER energy efficiency ratio
EFFFPLR efficiency function of part load ratio
EIA U.S. Energy Information Administration
EIR energy input ratio
EIRFPLR energy input ratio as a function of part load ratio
EIRFT energy input ratio as a function of temperature
EJSCREEN Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool
EMS energy management system
EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPD equipment power density
ERV energy recovery ventilator
EST Eastern Standard Time
EUI energy use intensity
EUL effective useful life
EULP end-use load profiles
FIPS Federal Information Processing Standard
GGHC Green Guide for Healthcare
gpm gallons per minute
GSHP ground-source heat pump
HID high intensity discharge
HIFLD Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data
HP horse power
HSIP Homeland Security Infrastructure Program
HSPF heating seasonal performance factor
HVAC heating, ventilating, and air conditioning
HW hot water
IEAD insulation entirely above deck
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ISO independent system operator
IT information technology
LBNL Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
LDD luminaire dirt depreciation
LED light-emitting diode
LFF lighting loss factor
LLD lamp lumen depreciation
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LMC lighting market characterization
LPD lighting power density
LRMER long-run marginal emission rate
LSM lighting subcommittee model
NEEA Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
NEMS National Energy Modeling System
NFRC National Fenestration Rating Council
NHGIS National Historical Geographic Information System
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
OEDI Open Energy Data Initiative
PFP parallel fan-powered
PLR part load ratio
PPL plug and process load
PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
PSZ-AC packaged single-zone air conditioner
PSZ-HP packaged single-zone heat pump
PTAC packaged terminal air conditioner
PTHP packaged terminal heat pump
PVAV packaged variable air volume
PPL plug and process loads
PUMA Public Use Microdata Area
RECS Residential Energy Consumption Survey
ReEDS Regional Energy Deployment System
RSDD room surface dirt depreciation
RTO regional transmission organization
RTU rooftop unit
SEER seasonal energy efficiency ratio
SHGC solar heat gain coefficient
SSL solid state lighting
SWH service water heating
TF total lighting factor
TMY3 typical meteorological year
Tstat thermostat
UTC Coordinated Universal Time
VAV variable air volume
VLT visible light transmittance
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VRF variable refrigerant flow
WCC water-cooled chiller
WSHP water-source heat pump
WWR window-to-wall ratio
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
List of Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1 Overview and Primary Use Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 ComStock Calibration and Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 ComStock Data Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 ComStock Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1 ComStock Sample Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Measures for ComStock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 OpenStudio-Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 ComStock Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 BuildStockBatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.6 Raw Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.7 Web-Based Visualization Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Building Characteristic Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1 Stock Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.1 Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.2 Building Type Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.3 Data Amalgamation for Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.2 Characteristic Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3 Publication of Building Characteristic Probability Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 Sampling Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4 ComStock Building Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.1 Location, Type, Age, Space Programming, Energy Code, and Change Over Time . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1.1 Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1.2 Building Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1.3 Vintage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1.4 Energy Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1.5 Building System Turnover and Effective Useful Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1.6 Space Type Ratios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.7 Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2 Hours of Operation and Occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.1 Hours of Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.2 Occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3 Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.3.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.3.2 Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3.3 Building Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.3.4 Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.3.5 Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.6 Floor Height . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.7 Number of Floors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.3.8 Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.3.9 Space Programming and Thermal Zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.4 Envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
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4.4.1 Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.4.2 Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4.3 Roof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4.4 Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.4.5 Infiltration and Natural Ventilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.5 Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.5.1 Interior Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.5.2 Exterior Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 Plug and Process Loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6.1 Electric Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6.2 Gas Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6.3 Data Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.6.4 Elevators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.6.5 Kitchen Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.7 Service Water Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.7.1 Service Water Heating Fuel Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.7.2 Service Water Heating System Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.7.3 Service Water Heating Efficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.7.4 Service Water Heating Usage and Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.8 Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.8.1 HVAC System Heating Fuel Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.8.2 HVAC System Types Probability Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.8.3 HVAC System Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.8.4 Outdoor Air Ventilation Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.8.5 Fan Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.8.6 Pump Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.8.7 Thermostat Set Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.8.8 Unoccupied Air Handling Unit Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.8.9 Demand Control Ventilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.8.10 Air-Side Energy Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.8.11 Air-Side Economizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.8.12 Furnaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.8.13 Boilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.8.14 Direct Expansion Cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.8.15 Air-Source Heat Pumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.8.16 Air-Cooled Chillers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.8.17 Water-Cooled Chillers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.8.18 Cooling Towers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.8.19 Water-Source Heat Pumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.8.20 Ground-Source Heat Pumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.8.21 Refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.9 Simulation Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.9.1 EnergyPlus Simulation Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5 ComStock Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.1 Energy Consumption by Fuel and End Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.2 Building Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3 Building Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
5.4 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.4.1 Electricity Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.4.2 On Site Fossil Fuel Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Appendix A Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Appendix B Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
List of Figures
Figure 1. Flowchart of the ComStock workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Figure 2. CBECS building types not covered by ComStock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Figure 3. Adoption of energy codes by state over time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Figure 4. Reliability analysis for windows in commercial buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Figure 5. Survival curves and derived lifespan probability density functions for HVAC equipment . . . . . . 31
Figure 6. Operating hours’ start time distributions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Figure 7. Operating hours’ duration distributions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Figure 8. National base occupancy schedules excluding California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Figure 9. National base occupancy schedules excluding California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 10. Example building geometry for a small office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Figure 11. Distribution of rentable area by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Figure 12. Distribution of building shape by building type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Figure 13. Distribution of aspect ratio by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Figure 14. Building rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Figure 15. Distribution of number of aboveground floors by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Figure 16. Window-to-wall ratio by rentable floor area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Figure 17. Window-to-wall ratio by building vintage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Figure 18. Window-to-wall ratio distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Figure 19. Example building geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Figure 20. Weighted floor area by energy code followed during last wall replacement and wall type . . . . . 49
Figure 21. Weighted floor area by wall type and building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Figure 22. Window characteristics for number of panes, glazing type, frame material, and low-E coating. . . 50
Figure 23. Weighted floor area by roof tilt and attic presence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Figure 24. Weighted floor area by energy code followed during last roof replacement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Figure 25. Average interior lighting power density by building type and lighting generation . . . . . . . . . . 58
Figure 26. Interior lighting generation distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Figure 27. Fraction of installed lighting generations by building size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 28. Fraction of installed lighting generation by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Figure 29. Weekday and weekend lighting base-to-peak ratios by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Figure 30. Average interior lighting equivalent full load hours by building type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
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Figure 31. Medium office elevator schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 32. Distribution of service water heating fuel by space heating fuel and building type . . . . . . . . . 69
Figure 33. Floor area served by each service water heating fuel by space heating fuel and building type . . . 70
Figure 34. Fraction of ComStock models using natural gas heating/water heating per county . . . . . . . . . 73
Figure 35. Fraction of ComStock models using electric heating/water heating per county . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Figure 36. Fraction of ComStock models using fuel oil heating/water heating per county . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Figure 37. Fraction of ComStock models using propane heating/water heating per county . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Figure 38. Fraction of ComStock models using district heating/water heating per county . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Figure 39. Heating thermostat set point (Fahrenheit) distributions per building type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Figure 40. Cooling thermostat set point (Fahrenheit) distributions per building type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Figure 41. Thermostat heating setback delta temperature probability distributions per building type. . . . . . 84
Figure 42. Thermostat cooling setback delta temperature probability distributions per building type. . . . . . 84
Figure 43. Example of ComStock Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Figure 44. Number of samples by building type and utility in the commercial AMI data set . . . . . . . . . . 157
Figure 45. Distribution of small office hours of operations, by day type and season . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Figure 46. Distribution of small office hours of operation, by utility and day type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Figure 47. California base occupancy schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Figure 48. California base occupancy schedules continued . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Figure 49. SWH heating usage schedule for full service restaurants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Figure 50. SWH heating usage schedule for hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Figure 51. SWH heating usage schedule for large hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Figure 52. SWH heating usage schedule for large office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Figure 53. SWH heating usage schedule for medium office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Figure 54. SWH heating usage schedule for small offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Figure 55. SWH heating usage schedule for outpatient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Figure 56. SWH heating usage schedule for primary school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Figure 57. SWH heating usage schedule for quick service restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Figure 58. SWH heating usage schedule for retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Figure 59. SWH heating usage schedule for secondary school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Figure 60. SWH heating usage schedule for small hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Figure 61. SWH heating usage schedule for strip mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Figure 62. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for full service restaurants . 168
Figure 63. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for hospitals . . . . . . . . . 168
Figure 64. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for large hotels . . . . . . . 168
Figure 65. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for large offices . . . . . . . 168
Figure 66. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for medium offices . . . . . 169
Figure 67. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for outpatient . . . . . . . . 169
Figure 68. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for primary schools . . . . . 169
Figure 69. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for quick service restaurants 169
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Figure 70. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for retail . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Figure 71. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for secondary schools . . . . 170
Figure 72. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for small hotel . . . . . . . . 170
Figure 73. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for small office . . . . . . . 170
Figure 74. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for strip malls . . . . . . . . 171
Figure 75. Comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for warehouses . . . . . . . 171
Figure 76. HVAC system type prevalence in all building types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Figure 77. HVAC system type prevalence in full service restaurants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Figure 78. HVAC system type prevalence in hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Figure 79. HVAC system type prevalence in large offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Figure 80. HVAC system type prevalence in medium offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Figure 81. HVAC system type prevalence in outpatient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Figure 82. HVAC system type prevalence in primary schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Figure 83. HVAC system type prevalence in quick service restaurants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Figure 84. HVAC system type prevalence in strip malls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Figure 85. HVAC system type prevalence in retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Figure 86. HVAC system type prevalence in secondary schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Figure 87. HVAC system type prevalence in small hotels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Figure 88. HVAC system type prevalence in small offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Figure 89. HVAC system type prevalence in warehouses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Figure 90. Percentage of buildings with thermostat setbacks from the CBECS 2012 survey . . . . . . . . . . 178
Figure 91. Correlation between thermostat set point and thermostat setback from BAS data . . . . . . . . . . 178
Figure 92. Boiler part load performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Figure 93. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of part load ratio performance curves . . . . . . . . . 179
Figure 94. DX cooling capacity as a function of airflow performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Figure 95. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of airflow performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Figure 96. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of temperature performance curves . . . . . . . . . . 181
Figure 97. DX cooling capacity as a function of temperature performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Figure 98. Air-source heat pump COP ratio as a function of outdoor air dry bulb temperature . . . . . . . . . 183
Figure 99. Air-source heat pump EIR ratio as a function of part load ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Figure 100. Air-source heat pump EIR ratio as a function of airflow fraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Figure 101. Air-source heat pump capacity as a function of outdoor air dry bulb temperature . . . . . . . . . . 184
Figure 102. Air-source heat pump capacity as a function of airflow ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Figure 103. Air-cooled chiller EIR as a function of part load ratio performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Figure 104. "AirCooledChiller2010PathA" modifier performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Figure 105. "ChlrAirRecip" modifier performance curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Figure 106. Energy input ratio modifier as a function of water-cooled chiller part load ratio. . . . . . . . . . . 187
Figure 107. Performance curves for WCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Figure 108. Performance curves for “ChlrWtrPosDispPathAAll Modifiers” WCC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
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Figure 109. Ground loop outlet vs. inlet temperature relationship for GSHPs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Figure 110. Compressor performance for small, old, medium temperature compressors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Figure 111. Compressor performance for large, new, medium temperature compressors . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Figure 112. Compressor performance for small, old, low temperature compressors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Figure 113. Compressor performance for large, new, low temperature compressors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
List of Tables
Table 1. Building Type Mapping Across Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Table 2. Building Characteristic Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Table 3. Distribution of ComStock Models in Each Census Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Table 4. Effective Useful Life of Major Commercial Building Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table 5. Commercial Equipment Lifetime Weibull Distribution Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Table 6. Space Type Ratio Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table 7. Floor-to-Floor Heights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Table 8. Window Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Table 9. Window Distribution Assumptions Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Table 10. Infiltration Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 11. Interior Lighting Generations and Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Table 12. Interior Lighting Generation Cutoff by Energy Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Table 13. Gas Equipment Power Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 14. Kitchen Space Type Percentage of Total Floor Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table 15. Kitchen Electric Equipment Energy Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table 16. Kitchen Gas Equipment Energy Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table 17. Fuel Type Category for ComStock HVAC System Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Table 18. Design Outdoor Air Rates—Outside California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Table 19. Design Outdoor Air Rates—Inside California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Table 20. Fan Pressure Rise and Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Table 21. Pump Configuration and Pressure Rise for Hydronic Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Table 22. Building Counts with Thermostat Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Table 23. Fraction of ComStock Buildings with Thermostat Setbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Table 24. Site and AHU Counts of Time Series BAS Data per Building Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table 25. AHU Operating Mode Schemes Used During Scheduled Unoccupied Times . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table 26. Energy Recovery Prevalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Table 27. Economizer Prevalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Table 28. Furnace Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Table 29. Boiler Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Table 30. Air-Source Heat Pump Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6
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Table 31. Air-Cooled Chiller Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Table 32. Water-Cooled Chiller Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Table 33. Cooling Tower Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Table 34. EnergyPlus Simulation Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Table 35. Building Input Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Table 45. Space Type Ratios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Table 36. Occupant Density for Food Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Table 37. Occupant Density for Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Table 38. Occupant Density for Hotels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Table 39. Occupant Density for Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Table 40. Occupant Density for Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Table 41. Occupant Density for Retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Table 42. Occupant Density for Warehouses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Table 43. Occupancy Schedule Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Table 44. Occupant Activity Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Table 46. Mapping of Wall Construction Types from Database to ComStock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Table 47. Wall Construction Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Table 48. Wall Assembly Thermal Performance (Outside California) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Table 49. Wall Assembly Thermal Performance (Inside California) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Table 50. Summary of Average Wall R-Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Table 51. Window Property Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Table 52. Window Thermal Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Table 53. Roof Assembly Thermal Performance (Outside California) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Table 54. Roof Assembly Thermal Performance (Inside California) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Table 55. Roof Construction Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Table 56. Ground Contact Floor Thermal Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Table 57. Interior Lighting Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Table 58. Interior Lighting Space Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Table 59. Interior Lighting Generation Start and End Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Table 64. Electric Equipment Power Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Table 82. Building Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Table 60. Interior Lighting Generation Distributions for ComStock 90.1-2013 Code Year . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Table 61. Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Table 62. Exterior Lighting Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Table 63. Entryways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Table 65. Passenger Elevators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Table 66. Freight Elevators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Table 67. Water Heater Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Table 68. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedules Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
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Table 69. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedules Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Table 70. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedules Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Table 71. Unitary DX Cooling Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Table 72. PTAC DX Cooling Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Table 73. Motor Efficiency for Fans and Pumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Table 74. AHU Unoccupied Operation Mode Percentages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 75. Demand Controlled Ventilation Prevalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 76. Boiler Performance Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 77. Air-Source Heat Pump Performance Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Table 78. Air-Cooled Chiller Performance Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Table 79. Water-Cooled Chiller Performance Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Table 80. Walk-In Refrigeration Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Table 81. Refrigeration Compressor Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
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1 Introduction
The commercial building sector stock model, or ComStock, is a highly granular, bottom-up model that uses mul-
tiple data sources, statistical sampling methods, and advanced building energy simulations to estimate the annual
subhourly energy consumption of the commercial building stock across the United States.
This document serves as a guide to and resource for the methodology and assumptions behind ComStock.
This type of analysis can be conducted using simple representation and fast execution or complex representation and
slow execution modeling methods. Each methodology has benefits and trade-offs. The National Energy Modeling
System (NEMS) used by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is an example of a simple, fast method.
NEMS models the entire U.S. energy system on the census region level, and its results for the building stock have
very low granularity. Modeling each individual building within the building stock is an example of a complex,
slow method. This approach offers a high granularity of results, but gives more detail than is needed and is highly
impractical.
The ComStock methodology is positioned between these two extremes. It strikes a balance by presenting just enough
information to answer its two driving questions. ComStock provides highly granular building stock data to capture
the diversity within the building stock while maintaining a reasonable execution speed. Three advantages of this
granular approach are: (1) hourly or subhourly detail; (2) modeling of controls, demand response, and measure
interaction; and (3) the ability to post-process the data to extract as many insights as possible from the simulations.
Professionals and researchers have several pathways for using ComStock. They can use a web-based visualization
platform to interact with the data set of annual and time series results, or they can use a simple spreadsheet-type
analysis to interact with annual energy consumption results and aggregated time series load profiles. If users want to
go deeper, they can even utilize the raw simulation results data set, which may require big-data skills and cloud or
high-performance computing assets.
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2 ComStock Workflow
Accurately representing commercial building energy usage is complex because of how subsystems of a building in-
teract with one another and with the surrounding environment. Every aspect of a commercial building can influence
its energy consumption, so it is difficult to identify which aspects of a building are critical for a given energy-related
metric and climate without simulation. To achieve its fundamental goal of representing the U.S. commercial building
stock across all energy-related metrics, ComStock must capture the diversity and variability of the building stock.
This requires a robust modeling and publishing workflow.
At the heart of ComStock are the approximately 350,000 building energy models (BEMs) that collectively represent
the commercial building stock in the United States (roughly 6 million buildings). These models do not represent
specific individual buildings (for example, there is no ComStock model for the Empire State Building). Modeling in-
dividual buildings would be impractical given the difficulty of compiling accurate data on the U.S. building stock at a
national scale. Identifying distributions of characteristics is a more tractable problem. For example, the EIA’s Com-
mercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) (EIA) provides information on how many buildings by
type have specific heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system characteristics (e.g., an office building
with a chiller). Combining this information with a building’s size and when and where it was built has allowed the
ComStock team to develop statistical distributions that determine the characteristics for each of the 350,000 models.
Creating and running the 350,000 BEMs that lie at the heart of ComStock—and then sharing the results—requires
significant infrastructure. The workflow that defines, executes, and post-processes these BEMs is shown in Figure
1. The remainder of this section contains an abridged discussion of the elements of this workflow and their role in
creating the ComStock BEMs and the results data set. Each aspect of the workflow is revisited in detail in Section 4
as modeling assumptions and algorithms are discussed.
10
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ComStock accomplishes its goal of accurately representing the U.S. building stock through a three-part workflow
process:
1. ComStock creates samples that represent the U.S. commercial building stock.
2. These samples are translated into BEMs and modified to represent either the baseline U.S. commercial build-
ing stock or an altered version thereof (i.e., modeling the impact of an efficiency or electrification measure).
3. The physics-based BEMs are evaluated through an energy simulation engine that uses high-performance
computing to simulate each model. The resulting data are made available to a wide range of stakeholders.
The input data sets used to develop ComStock are often the result of extensive, highly capital-intensive data collec-
tion efforts. Some of the data sets purchased for this work are subject to data retention clauses that require deletion
of the raw data after the contractual use has been completed. Given these contractual agreements, ComStock typ-
ically aggregates and joins with other data sets to generate distributional estimates of relationships between key
characteristics. These input distributions are the first step in generating samples for ComStock.
Translating the input distributions into individual samples, or combinations of characteristics, requires a sampling
process. Currently, ComStock assembles all input distributions as an n-dimensional joint probability distribution,
which is then sampled using a space-filling sampling algorithm. The goal of the sampling algorithm is to minimize
the largest void, or “gap,” between individual samples.
Each sample generated by the sampling algorithm defines the input characteristics for a single BEM. This results
in hundreds of thousands of BEMs (millions when alterations to the building stock are also considered). Each of
these BEMs must be created through automated model-generation scripts (discussed in Section 2.3) and evaluated
via a BEM physics engine (discussed in Section 2.5). Additionally, it is often necessary to consider the impact of
alterations or retrofits to the building stock—the development and use of Measures are discussed in the following
section (Section 2.2).
Throughout ComStock’s development, various Measures have been developed for specific projects. These include
Measures developed to support the Los Angeles 100% Renewable Energy Study (LA100), the Advanced Building
Construction Typology Report, and, in ComStock’s infancy, the Electrification Futures Study. Currently, the Com-
Stock team is developing a more robust and generalized set of Measures that will be published. These Measures are
still in development, but at minimum will include efficiency and electrification Measures.
A key element of Measures is the interconnected nature of the intervention and the BEM representation of building
systems and technologies. As an example, when modeling an intervention that adds an economizer to all rooftop
11
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units without an economizer, the modeling workflow relies on (a) the Measure identifying which rooftop units
already have an economizer, and (b) the Measure updating the BEMs that do not have an economizer.
In the case of a Measure that electrifies forklifts in warehouses, however, two issues arise. First, none of ComStock’s
sample definition characteristics provide information on which warehouses (or other building types) this measure
is applicable to, or to what degree. Second, there is no disambiguation of forklift load vs. other internal load in
ComStock. As such, any Measure that attempts to implement this intervention has to rely on scaled measurement
and verification or market research studies. In both cases, the estimates may be accurate, but it is difficult to tie the
impact to any fundamental characteristic of the model and represent the variability of the impact across buildings.
Although this does not invalidate the value of such a measure, it is important to differentiate measures that fit into
ComStock’s sample definitions and OpenStudio-Standards’ workflow from those that are “bolted on” post-hoc.
2.3 OpenStudio-Standards
OpenStudio-Standards is an open-source modeling library that defines the detailed inputs of a BEM based on simple
input values. It contains the software needed to add all building systems for each vintage of every building type. This
software is primarily based on the building energy code at the time of construction/retrofit. It contains the software
code needed to add all building systems for each vintage of every building type, primarily based on building energy
code followed by the building at time of construction/retrofit. This capability is paired with a set of space types that
represent the loads of a specific building type to allow for complete model definition.
OpenStudio-Standards was originally developed to help automate the process of creating energy code baseline
BEMs. This allowed for more consistent creation of baseline models for efficiency incentive programs. Throughout
the development and calibration of ComStock, these code-minimum assumptions have been altered to better reflect
the building performance seen in measured data sources. In some cases, this has resulted in components being de-
fined on a non-code basis (e.g., LEDs), whereas in other cases, calibration has resulted in alterations to the nominal
assumptions in code-minimum definitions. These alterations are discussed in detail in the relevant subsections of
Section 4.
OpenStudio-Standards was not originally developed for ComStock and is used for many other purposes. The stan-
dards represent the collaborative work of many researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Results for a ComStock project are relative to a fixed point in the lifespan of the building stock. For example, Com-
Stock currently represents the building stock as it looked in 2018. Results assume overnight adoption of changes
to the building stock. In reality, large-scale changes to the building stock take many years, and the building stock
evolves during that process. If either the baseline building stock characteristics or the measures being considered
change significantly, careful consideration of the applicability of results is needed. In many cases, the changes in the
point in time and the measures being considered will not significantly change the results. However, in some cases,
a rapidly evolving understanding of technology performance and saturation, or increasingly refined questions, will
trigger the need for updated or refined analyses. For example, state-of-the-art air-source heat pump characteristics
may change rapidly, making results from a ComStock project using older technology assumptions obsolete.
2.5 BuildStockBatch
BuildStockBatch is a software library that executes ComStock and ResStock projects. ResStock is a residential
building sector model and shares many workflow components with ComStock. BuildStockBatch is typically used
by NREL researchers on NREL’s high-performance computing system, Eagle. However, the ResStock team has
developed and demonstrated an Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based workflow that can be used by entities without
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access to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) high-performance computing system. BuildStockBatch can
run up to tens of millions of simulations for a given ComStock (or ResStock) project. Although the number of
simulations in these projects can vary greatly, BuildStockBatch scales by distributing simulations across a number
of servers. The number of servers increases in proportion to the number of simulations, ranging from a few servers
to hundreds of servers. After each server completes its requested simulations, it pushes the results to a remote file-
system-based database.
Currently, BuildStockBatch utilizes an Eagle high-performance computing workflow for ComStock. In the future,
ComStock expects to provide a proof-of-concept BuildStockBatch implementation that uses AWS to execute a
ComStock simulation. It is not yet clear whether funding will be allocated to support this workflow’s use by third-
party users, but the AWS-enabled code base will be publicly available when developed.
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3 Building Characteristic Sampling
There are three steps to creating the sample of buildings modeled by ComStock. The first step creates estimates
of the sizes, ages, types, and locations of the buildings that exist throughout the United States. The second step is
characteristic estimation, which is detailed in Section 4. This step defines the additional characteristics of buildings
that determine energy consumption and performance. These characteristics are mostly derived from different data
sources than those used in the stock estimation step, although they often depend on stock estimation parameters such
as building type or age. The third step is sampling the multidimensional probability space to generate a collection of
input parameters, or samples. The final samples give an accurate estimation of the commercial building stock at large
while not attempting to model any individual building exactly. Stock estimation and sampling are described further
in this section, but the majority of the characteristics are discussed in Section 4.
A secondary issue is the type of building associated with each floor area. Although accurately estimating the total
floor area of commercial buildings is necessary, it is not sufficient, as building type also has an impact on energy
use intensity (EUI), measured in units of energy use per square foot per year. As an example, a large office with
a data center would be expected to have a dramatically higher electric load per square foot than an unconditioned
warehouse.
The goal of the stock estimation process is to identify the type, floor area, and location of buildings across the United
States. This task is complicated by a number of factors, including data sources that are inconsistent across the United
States. However, floor area estimation is central to ensuring that ComStock is accurate for its intended use cases.
ComStock takes a three step approach towards achieving an accurate estimate. To begin, national data sources are
assembled to present overlapping (and often conflicting) reports of the U.S. commercial building stock. Second, the
buildings reported by the various data sources are assigned a consistent set of type descriptors—e.g., large office or
secondary school. Finally, the various data sets are amalgamated to create a final, consistent data set that is used in
the sampling process.
CoStar is a “leading provider of commercial real estate data and marketplace listing platforms. Its data offerings
contain in-depth analytical information on over five million commercial real estate properties related to various
subsections, including office, retail, multifamily, healthcare, industrial, self-storage, and data centers” (CoStar).
CoStar’s data is driven by commercial leases and commercial sales data, and is updated with millions of dollars’
worth of research per year. CoStar’s data set is not always complete, both in terms of geography and building type.
For example, building types that are rarely bought and sold, such as schools and major hospital complexes, are less
likely to be represented in CoStar’s database.
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HIFLD is a set of data tables assembled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to support critical infrastruc-
ture awareness, disaster recovery, and various other uses. Their databases include information on critical infrastruc-
ture facilities such as refineries and military bases, but also include information on schools (which are often used as
disaster assistance centers) and hospitals. This is particularly useful, as these are two of the key building types that
are less likely to be represented in CoStar. Although the schools data set provided by HIFLD always provides in-
formation on the number of students enrolled in a given school (which is used as a proxy to determine the floor area
of the school when not otherwise available), the hospital table fails to report the number of beds in a given hospital
(which is likewise used to scale floor area) in approximately half the states in the United States. In these cases, data
from states that do report this information is generalized and used to infer the floor area in states without data.
Although both of these data sets provide excellent coverage of buildings they consider, they do not provide full and
complete coverage of commercial buildings across the United States. Of particular note, using these two data sources
results in an estimate of U.S. commercial buildings that differs from that published by CBECS. The ComStock team,
after significant discussion, has decided to treat the CBECS estimate of the floor area of each building type as a truth
data set. Following the sampling of the CoStar and HIFLD data sets, the CBECS estimates are used to “true up”
the numbers on a national basis. As a result, ComStock’s floor area estimates match CBECS’ by building type on a
national basis. Although other truth data sources were considered, CBECS’ centrality to all commercial energy use
estimation made it the obvious and consistent choice for estimating the U.S. commercial building stock’s energy use.
ComStock maps the building type definitions from each data source to a specific building type from the DOE proto-
type buildings to maximize consistency. While these mappings are imperfect, they represent the best efforts of the
ComStock team to capture the unique energy-related characteristics of different building types within the modeling
framework created and used by DOE over the last 15 years. Table 1 shows the mapping from the CoStar building
types and HIFLD tables to the DOE prototype buildings, and from the DOE prototype buildings to CBECS’ Princi-
pal Building Activity Plus.
It is important to note that only one of either the CoStar or HIFLD data is used to represent each type of DOE proto-
type building—that is, no building type is pulled from both data sets. This ensures that any errors that exist in either
data set are independently corrected by the CBECS normalization. According to CBECS’ estimation, the amalgama-
tion of these three data sets accounts for 64% of the energy use and 62% of the floor area of commercial buildings
in the United States. The remaining 36% of energy use not represented is due to several CBECS building types that
are not included in ComStock yet such as grocery stores and religious worship. Figure 2 shows the building types not
represented in the ComStock model, on a CBECS Principal Building Activity Plus basis, and their relative contri-
bution to the commercial building energy use in the United States. As can be seen in the figure, college/universities
represent the largest un-modeled building classification by energy use, followed by religious institutions, mixed-use
offices, grocery stores, nursing homes, and recreational buildings. Although these building types all consume energy,
the ComStock team does not have sufficient information to make a reasonable estimate of their energy use, either
annually or on a time-series basis, using the approach discussed in Section 4.1.6.
DOE prototype building type is used to represent a significant amount of the U.S. building stock but is also not used
in many cases due to concerns regarding its accurate representation of specific building sub-types. The following
list discusses each building type, and what buildings it does and does not represent, as understood by ComStock’s
developers.
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Table 1. Building Type Mapping Across Data Sources
CoStar Building Type HIFLD Table DOE Prototype and CBECS Principle Building
ComStock Building Activity Plus
Type
Retail: Bar Restaurant/cafeteria
Not applicable Full service restaurant
Retail: Restaurant Bar/pub/lounge
Not applicable Healthcare: Hospitals Hospital Hospital/inpatient health
Hospitality: Hotel
Large hotel Hotel
Hospitality: Hotel casino
Office: Industrial live/work unit Administrative/professional
office
Office: Office live/work unit Bank/other financial
Office
Office: Office/residential Government office
Not applicable
Retail: Bank Medical office (non-diagnostic)
Flex
Other office
Office: Service
Health care: Rehabilitation
Medical office (diagnostic)
center
Outpatient
Health care: Skilled nursing
facility
Office: Medical
Clinic/other outpatient health
Health care
Education: Public schools Elementary/middle school
Not applicable Primary/secondary school
Education: Private schools High school
Retail: Fast food
Quick service restaurant Fast food
General retail: Fast rood
Retail: Department store
Retail store
Retail: Freestanding
Retail
Retail: Garden center
Other retail
General retail: Freestanding
Hospitality: Motel
Small hotel Motel or inn
Hospitality
Flex: Showroom
Retail: Storefront
Retail: Storefront retail/office
Retail: Storefront retail/residen- Strip mall Strip shopping mall
Not applicable
tial
Specialty: Post office
Retail
General retail
Flex: Light distribution
Flex: Light manufacturing Distribution/shipping center
Industrial: Distribution
Industrial: Service
Industrial: Showroom Warehouse Nonrefrigerated warehouse
Industrial: Truck terminal
Industrial: Warehouse
Specialty: Airplane hangar Self-storage
Specialty: Self-storage
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Ener
gyConsumpt
ionofU.
S.Bui
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ock
Al
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nCBECS Noti
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ock
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ock) Col l
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LargeOffic e Mi xed- useoffic e
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vi ng
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War ehouse 5500 7% Rec reat ion
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Pri
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ComStock 6%
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Secondar ySc hool 4500 1500 Librar y
i
onsumpt
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QuickSer viceRest aurant 4000 5% Dor mi t or y/ frat ernity/soror it
y
Smal l
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AnnualSi
Enc losedmal l
AnnualSi
Figure 2. CBECS Principal Buildings Activity Plus building types not covered by ComStock on an energy use basis.
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Full Service Restaurant Both sit-down restaurants and bars are included in this category, as both typically require
significant cooking and sanitation equipment for their operation.
Hospital Hospitals, wherever possible, are disambiguated from outpatient clinics through the existence of around-
the-clock medical facilities. This is not possible in many states, in which case the differentiation is based on
available CoStar data.
Large Hotel Large hotels are differentiated from small hotels on the basis of conference or casino spaces. Hotels
that have major facilities for conferences, events, or gambling are classified as large hotels.
Offices Offices are divided up into three subsets: small, medium, and large. Each type of office is based on the
thresholds used by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
Appendix G (ASHRAE), which include both size and number of stories. In the case of large offices, there are
additional probability distributions that determine what percent (if any) of the office is a data center.
Outpatient Outpatient facilities, as represented in ComStock, include non-hospital medical centers, rehabilitation
centers, medical offices, and skilled nursing facilities.
Primary School The primary school type is used to represent all schools that do not include secondary or post-
secondary education, i.e., grades 9 and beyond. Schools that provide education for pre-secondary to post-
secondary students (e.g., grades 5–12) are classified as secondary schools. This grouping means that any
daycare facilities classified as schools by HIFLD are included as primary schools, unless the facilities also
support secondary students.
Quick Service Restaurant Quick service restaurants consist entirely of fast food restaurants.
Retail This category predominantly features large national retailers, excluding grocery stores. This includes big box
stores, garden centers, department stores, and any other freestanding retailers that do not include a significant
grocery section.
Secondary School Secondary schools incorporate all schools that offer instruction to pupils in grades 9–12. No
post-secondary institutions (e.g., community colleges and universities) are represented by ComStock unless
they fall into another building type defined herein.
Small Hotel Small hotels encompass all hotels that do not have significant spaces for conferences, meetings, or
gambling.
Strip Mall Strip malls encompass all multi-tenant retail buildings, as well as single-tenant buildings that are not
classified as large retailers, such as post offices, showrooms, etc. These buildings have additional probability
distributions that determine how much of the building floor area (if any) is a restaurant. This is critically
important, as restaurants have a far higher EUI and as a result can cause strip malls to have far higher energy
uses than would otherwise be expected in a stand alone retail building.
Warehouse Warehouses are perhaps the most differentiated building type in the commercial building stock. They
are represented in ComStock as a conjunction of office spaces and high-bay spaces. This building type is
used to model distribution centers, light manufacturing, and some showroom and truck terminal spaces, as
well as airplane hangars, service depots, and self-storage centers. The spaces encompass a large number of
functions; however, it is difficult to differentiate these spaces when examining national databases of building
stock characteristics. This makes further disambiguation of these buildings impossible without additional data
sources.
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The ComStock team tagged all individual buildings with a climate zone and a county to convert the county-level
locations of buildings within the United States into a probability distribution. From this data, one distribution was
created: the likelihood of a building in the United States being located in a given climate zone. In this distribution,
there is a much higher likelihood of being located in a heavily populated climate zone (like 4A, which includes
much of NJ, DC, MD, DE, VA, etc.) than a sparsely populated climate zone (like 8, which includes only part of
AK). Next, for each climate zone, another distribution was created: the likelihood of a building being located in each
county within that climate zone. In these distributions, there is a much higher likelihood of being located in a heavily
populated county than a sparsely populated county. These two sets of distributions allow any ComStock sample to be
assigned a climate zone and a county prior to any additional characteristics being calculated.
The next characteristic to be described as a probability distribution was the building type. Based on the combined
CoStar and HIFLD data sets, the likelihood of a building being of a specific building type was calculated for each
county in the United States. In some cases, the county in question had an insufficient number of buildings in CoStar
and HIFLD to create a realistic distribution. In these cases, the county was instead assigned a distribution of building
types based on all the buildings in the state. This is not frequently required for building type, but is more common for
floor area, vintage, and number of stories (discussed next).
Probability distributions for three additional characteristics were created using the HIFLD and CoStar data sets: floor
area, vintage, and number of stories. CoStar’s database has excellent coverage of floor area of a building as a func-
tion of county and building type, good coverage of vintage (the year the building was constructed), and reasonable
coverage of the number of stories. HIFLD, on the other hand, has good information on vintage, but not on floor area
or the number of stories. For floor area, inferences were based on the number of students enrolled (for schools) and
the number of beds (for hospitals). Where information on the number of beds was missing, the aggregate distribution
for the United States was used to infer the floor area. The number of stories was estimated based on the inferred
floor area for each hospital/school. These estimates, as well as the estimates provided by the CoStar data, were used
to create distributions for each building type’s characteristics on a county basis. There were several cases in which
one or more characteristics could not be accurately estimated for a building type/county pair. In these cases, the
aforementioned approach of using the state-level distribution was employed.
The approach employed is mathematically accurate. However, the downside to using building count when creating
probability distributions is that a high sample count is required to ensure that less common but highly impactful
buildings, such as buildings over one million square feet, are well represented. For example, if a county contains 100
retail stores with a floor area of 1,000 square feet each (for a total of 100,000 square feet) and one retail store (per-
haps a mall) of one million square feet, the large retail store would be expected to use roughly ten times (1,000,000
square feet/ 100,000 square feet) the energy of all of the smaller retail stores put together. With the current count-
based approach, around 100 samples would need to be generated from this distribution to ensure that the one million
square foot retail store was represented in the model. Although the impacts of this are minimal at a higher geo-
graphic level, it is a known weakness of the current approach.
Schedule diversity is a key source of variability in the U.S. commercial building stock. Some buildings operate on a
24/7 basis, but the percentage varies drastically by building type—i.e., there are very few primary schools throughout
the United States that are “on” 24 hours per day, let alone 365 days per year. There is also monthly/seasonal variabil-
ity in a few building types, most notably schools and hotels. Although many of the buildings have lower occupant- or
schedule-driven loads during various periods, some do not (e.g., schools that offer summer school). The nuances of
this variability are represented in the schedule-driven characteristic distributions.
Equipment characteristics can make a significant difference in the energy consumption of a building through differ-
ences in efficiency, fuel type, and the presence or absence of certain types of equipment. ComStock represents this
variability by accounting for the fuel type variability within a given state. This allows ComStock to calculate the
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likelihood of various heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system types as a function of building type
and fuel type. As part of this calculation, systems that do not provide cooling are considered, particularly in the case
of warehouses. The fuel type distribution is also used as an input to the selection of water heating equipment.
The third major category of variability is equipment vintage. In most cases, this category is driven by the age of the
building. Equipment within a building is generally updated and replaced over time for reasons such as remodeling
or equipment failure. As discussed in Section 4.1.5, there is a great degree of variability in equipment lifespans,
which leads to variability in the current equipment installed in buildings of a given year of construction. The age of
the equipment (or, put another way, the year of manufacture/sale of the equipment) plays a large part in a buildings’
efficiency. In some cases, such as buildings built within the last 5–10 years, it is unlikely that many of the building
systems have been replaced. The equipment distribution, which is conditioned on the building’s year of construction,
reflects these nuances.
Finally, building energy codes have an impact on the efficiency of components installed within a building. Building
energy codes set the minimum efficiency levels for various building components, but code adoption is not uniform
across the United States. As discussed in Section 4.1.4, the building code in force at the time of replacement/installa-
tion of a building component is a key driver of its efficiency.
20
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Continued from previous page
Building Characteristic Description Data Source Conditional On
Number of Stories Number of stories above CoStar County, Building Type
grade
Window-to-Wall Ratio Window-to-wall ratio NFRC Commercial Fenestra- Building Type, Building
tion Market Study Rentable Area, Energy Code
in Force When Constructed
Building Shape Building shape designation CBECS 2012 Building Type
Aspect Ratio Aspect ratio of building CBECS 2012 Building Shape
Building Rotation Rotation of building relative CBECS 2012
to North
Space Heating Fuel Principal heating fuel for the CBECS 2012 Plus ResStock Building Type, County
building Residential Heating Fuel by
County
Water Heating Fuel Heating fuel for service water CBECS 2012 Space Heating Fuel, Building
heating Type
HVAC System Type Primary building HVAC CBECS Building Type, Space Heating
system type Fuel, Census Region
HVAC Nighttime Vari- HVAC nighttime ventilation NREL end-use data analysis HVAC System Type, Build-
ability operation ing Type
Weekday Operation Start Building weekday operation NREL/Lawrence Berkeley Building Type
Time start time National Laboratory (LBNL)
AMI analysis
Weekend Operation Start Building weekend operation NREL/LBNL AMI analysis Building Type
Time start time
Weekday Operational Building weekday operation NREL/LBNL AMI analysis Building Type, Weekday
Duration duration Operation Start Time
Weekend Operational Building weekend operation NREL/LBNL AMI analysis Building Type, Weekend
Duration duration Operation Start Time
Thermostat Set point for Heating set point during NREL Tstat data analysis Building Type
Heating occupied hours
Thermostat Setback for Heating setback during NREL Tstat data analysis Building Type
Heating unoccupied hours
Thermostat Set point for Cooling set point during NREL Tstat data analysis Building Type
Cooling occupied hours
Thermostat Setback for Cooling setback during NREL Tstat data analysis Building Type
Cooling unoccupied hours
Wall Construction Type Building wall construction LightBox Climate Zone, Number of
type Stories
Lighting Technology Size Building size classification Building Rentable Area
Bin for lighting technology type
Plug Load Base-to-Peak Methodology for variability NREL end-use data analysis Building Type
Ratio type of plug load amplitude
Plug Load Weekday Ratio between nominal and NREL end-use data analysis Building Type, Plug Load
Base-to-Peak Ratio maximum weekday plug Base-to-Peak Ratio Type
Load levels
Plug Load Weekend Ratio between nominal and NREL end-use data analysis Building Type, Plug Load
Base-to-Peak Ratio maximum weekend plug Base-to-Peak Ratio Type
Load levels
Lighting Base-to-Peak Methodology for variability NREL end-use data analysis Building Type
Ratio Type of lighting load amplitude
Lighting Weekday Ratio between nominal and NREL end-use data analysis Building Type, Lighting
Base-to-Peak Ratio maximum weekday lighting Base-to-Peak Ratio Type
load levels
Lighting Weekend Ratio between nominal and NREL end-use data analysis Building Type, lighting
Base-to-Peak Ratio maximum weekend lighting Base-to-Peak Ratio Type
load levels
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Continued from previous page
Building Characteristic Description Data Source Conditional On
Code Compliance for Building energy code compli- Assumption State
Building Construction ance when first constructed
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
Interior Lighting pliance for latest interior
lighting replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
Walls pliance for latest walls
replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code compli- Assumption State
Service Water Heating ance for latest service water
heating replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code compli- Assumption State
Roof ance for latest roof replace-
ment
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
Exterior Lighting pliance for latest exterior
lighting replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
Interior Equipment pliance for latest interior
equipment replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
Windows pliance for latest window
replacement
Code Compliance for Building energy code com- Assumption State
HVAC pliance for latest HVAC
replacement
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Interior Lighting ment of the interior lighting Construction
system
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for HVAC ment of the HVAC system Construction
Last Replacement Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
Year for Service Water ment of the service water Construction
Heating heating system
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Walls ment of the wall Construction
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Windows ment of the windows Construction
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Roof ment of the roof Construction
Last Replacement Year Year of most recent replace- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Exterior Lighting ment of the exterior lighting Construction
system
Last Replacement year Year of most recent re- CPUC DEER EULs Simulation Year, Year of
for Interior Equipment placement of the interior Construction
equipment system
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Interior time of last interior lighting for Interior Lighting
Lighting renovation
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Windows of last window renovation for Windows
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Roof of last roof renovation for Roof
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of HVAC of last HVAC renovation for HVAC
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Continued from previous page
Building Characteristic Description Data Source Conditional On
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Walls of last walls renovation for Walls
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Service of last service water heating for Service Water Heating
Water Heating renovation
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at time State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement year
placement of Interior of last interior equipment for Interior Equipment
Equipment renovation
Code in Force for Re- Energy code in force at State Code Adoption History State, Last Replacement Year
placement of Exterior time of last exterior lighting for Exterior Lighting
Lighting renovation
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Energy Code in Force
for Building Construction building was constructed Plus Year Built and Turnover when Constructed, Code
Compliance for Building
Construction
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Replace-
for Replacement of current interior lighting Plus Year Built and Turnover ment of Interior Lighting,
Interior Lighting system installed Code Compliance for Interior
Lighting
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Replace-
for Replacement of current service water heating Plus Year Built and Turnover ment of Service Water
Service Water Heating system installed Heating, Code Compliance
for Service Water Heating
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Replace-
for Replacement of current windows were Plus Year Built and Turnover ment of Windows, Code
Windows installed Compliance for Windows
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Re-
for Replacement of Roof current roof was installed Plus Year Built and Turnover placement of Roof, Code
Compliance for Roof
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Replace-
for Replacement of current interior equipment Plus Year Built and Turnover ment of Interior Equipment,
Interior Equipment installed Code Compliance for Interior
Equipment
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Re-
for Replacement of when current HVAC system Plus Year Built and Turnover placement of HVAC, Code
HVAC installed Compliance for HVAC
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Re-
for Replacement of Walls current walls were installed Plus Year Built and Turnover placement of Walls, Code
Compliance for Walls
Energy Code Followed Energy code followed when State Code Adoption History Code in Force for Replace-
for Replacement of current exterior lighting Plus Year Built and Turnover ment of Exterior Lighting,
Exterior Lighting system installed Code Compliance for Exte-
rior Lighting
Lighting Technology Generation of lighting Lighting Market Characteri- Code in Force for Replace-
Generation technology used in building zation ment of Interior Lighting,
Last Replacement Year for
Interior Lighting
Window Technology Window technology type NFRC Commercial Fenestra- Energy Code Followed for
Type used in the building tion Market Study Replacement of Windows,
Climate Zone
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3.4 Sampling Methodology
The previous subsections describe the creation of building characteristic probability distributions that are in many
cases are conditional on one another. These distributions, when joined together, create a multidimensional joint
probability distribution. This joint probability distribution represents the ComStock team’s best estimate of the build-
ing characteristics of the commercial building stock in the United States. In order to go from the joint probability
distribution to a set of discrete building samples, a sampling algorithm must be used.
Several different classes of algorithms support sampling in multidimensional probability spaces. ComStock’s choice
has largely been influenced by Burhenne, Jacob, and Henze, which introduced Sobol Sequences as a low-discrepancy
basis for sampling in higher-dimensional spaces. This approach attempts, with each sample, to optimally reduce
the maximal space between samples. Although this approach can be implemented on an iterative basis, ComStock
adopted an approach developed by Chisari, which uses a bit-switching algorithm to select optimal sampling within
an n-dimensional probability space. This approach is designed to accurately capture the full extent of the distribu-
tions with limited samples on a non-biased basis. In other words, all buildings within a type are equally weighted
after sampling, rather than being reweighted as a secondary step to sampling.
The results of applying these algorithms produced 350,000 building samples. The set of characteristics for each sam-
ple defines the inputs to the ComStock BEM workflow, which creates a BEM for each sample. The characteristics
of the 350,000 samples are recorded in the buildstock.csv file. The buildings described in this file provide the Com-
Stock team’s best estimate of the characteristics for a large portion of the United States’ commercial building stock
for use by researchers, practitioners, and consultants. For a detailed look at the accuracy of the resulting models,
refer to Wilson et al. The building energy models for ComStock’s 350,000 baseline building samples are available to
download at https://data.openei.org/ in the nrel-pds-building-stock data lake. See the README.md file for details.
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4 ComStock Building Models
ComStock uses about 30 high-level, whole-building characteristics to describe each building, as discussed in Sec-
tion 3.4. However, whole-building energy models, such as the EnergyPlus® model used by ComStock, typically
require thousands of inputs to describe a building for simulation. The purpose of the subsequent sections is to de-
scribe the assumptions, conventions, and data sources used to transform the high-level descriptions into inputs with
the level of detail needed by EnergyPlus. Although the software used to implement this transformation is critical to
the workflow, the focus is on the model inputs, not on the software workflow.
One question that often arises is why more of the input assumptions documented in this section are not incorporated
directly into the sampling framework described in Section 3.4. This is an especially common question for those fa-
miliar with ResStock™ (Wilson et al.), the residential building stock modeling tool that ComStock is based on. After
all, ResStock uses more than 100 building characteristics to describe residential dwelling units, which are arguably
less complex than commercial buildings. There are two main drivers behind the decision to limit the number of
building characteristics: (1) handling complexity and (2) data availability for commercial buildings.
From a complexity standpoint, there is significantly more diversity among commercial buildings than among resi-
dential buildings. At one extreme, there are buildings like large hospitals, which may be several hundred thousand
square feet, encompass spaces ranging from operating rooms to cafeterias, and be served by a complex array of
HVAC systems. At the other extreme, there are buildings like small standalone retail stores, which may consist of
just one retail space, a small storage room, and a restroom. Accounting for the diversity in lighting power density
for each space type across all commercial building types in ComStock would alone require more than 100 building
characteristics, many of which would not be applicable for certain building types. Multiply this by the number of
characteristics that vary between building types, and the number of building characteristics required quickly becomes
untenable.
From a data availability standpoint, there is simply much less information available for commercial buildings than
there is for residential buildings. This means that modeling the commercial building stock requires more assumptions
than modeling the residential building stock. Compounding this lack of data is the fact that most commercial build-
ing data sources handle complexity by focusing on a single building type (e.g., offices), providing information only
at the whole-building level, or providing percentages of floor area associated with a given characteristic. Rather than
making engineering estimates to generate probability distributions for every building characteristic, we have chosen
to make point estimates for certain parameters. Proponents of stochastic modeling may disagree with this approach,
but we believe it is warranted, given the model complexity that is avoided.
The end result is that many of the intra-building characteristics of commercial buildings must be inferred from
whole-building characteristics. Rather than adding these to the input layer, they are set in the process that expands
these whole-building characteristics into energy model inputs.
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4.1 Location, Type, Age, Space Programming, Energy Code, and Change Over Time
4.1.1 Location
ComStock has four levels of location granularity for its building models: IECC climate zone, census division, state,
and county. During sampling, each model is first assigned a climate zone, then a county, then a state and census
division. The climate zone and county probability distributions come from the CoStar and HIFLD data provided by
the Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) on a building count basis. The state and census division are
assigned using a lookup table that is based on the model’s sampled county. The location metadata impacts numerous
characteristics in the model, such as weather file, building type, building geometry characteristics (e.g., number of
stories and rentable area), and energy code applicability. Table 3 shows the number of models used in each census
division.
Additional location metadata is joined to the buildstock.csv for use in parsing ComStock results. This includes data
such as Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA), Building America climate zone, independent system operator (ISO)
region, and ReEDS balancing area. This location metadata is joined on the census tract level. Census tracts are
assigned to the buildstock.csv using the CoStar and HSIP data.
Each building type is predominantly defined by a space type breakdown. For a given square footage of a ComStock
building type, the fraction of the square footage of space type A (open office) vs. B (closed office) will remain the
same as what they are in the DOE prototype models with two exceptions. Although these definitions are useful in
the analysis of energy codes, there are several cases where they fail to provide the variability required for ComStock
to provide a useful representation of the U.S. commercial building stock. There are two building types are currently
represented with additional variability in space programming - large office and strip malls.
Large Offices Currently, large offices have variable data-center loads in ComStock. This aligns with study data
obtained through the End-Use Load Profiles (EULP) project that was used to calibrate ComStock. This results
in a higher degree of EUI variability within the large office building type than would be expected with only a
change in space programming, given the high energy intensity of the data center space type.
Strip Malls Strip malls often contain one or more restaurants. Strip malls with restaurants often have significantly
higher EUIs than restaurant-free strip malls, which are the only kind represented by the reference and proto-
type models. To address the significant lack of diversity and variability in strip mall EUIs, the End-Use Load
Profiles project added a variable restaurant component to strip mall models in ComStock. This results in a
more realistic distribution of loads by end use across the strip mall segment.
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4.1.3 Vintage
Vintage, as previously discussed in the sampling section 3.2, is a key component of ascertaining the age and associ-
ated efficiency of building components. Vintage is determined based on information from either CoStar or HIFLD.
However, in many cases, the vintage must be inferred due to a lack of available data on a county or state basis. When
there is insufficient data on a county basis, state data are used, and in the few cases (typically in relation to hospitals)
where state data are unavailable, national data are used.
Commercial buildings are complex in that each subsystem of the building—except perhaps walls—is expected to be
replaced or updated at least once during the life of the building, without the building being reconstructed from the
ground up. As such, it is critical to understand the year in which a building was first constructed in order to estimate
the age (and the associated minimum energy code) as a function of the vintage. The latest year of intervention is
calculated for each building component as a function of the vintage, and each of these are passed to an energy code
lookup to determine which, if any, energy codes were in force.
Finally, it is important to note that vintage is especially important for recent construction. Buildings built within
the last decade are unlikely to have significantly different or updated systems compared to those used at the time of
construction. As a result, these buildings are a unique stock segment and have potential for cost-effective impact in
the commercial building stock.
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Figure 3. Adoption of energy codes by state over time.
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Table 4. Effective Useful Life of Major Commercial Building Systems
the measures installed under the program are still in place and operable” (California Public Utilities Commission).
In the reliability community, EUL is typically referred to as “median time to failure” (Texas Instruments), whereas
ASHRAE uses the term “median service life” (Abramson, Wong, and Herman).
For ComStock, the primary source of EULs is the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Database of
Energy Efficiency Resources (DEER) (California Public Utilities Commission). Previous work on EULs indicates
that there is wide variation in the quality of national EUL data, but it also indicates that the studies performed in
DEER are generally the best available (Skumatz). The values in DEER were cross-referenced against the lifetimes
used in the EIA NEMS Commercial Demand Module (EIA) and the ASHRAE Service Life and Maintenance Cost
Database (ASHRAE). Table 4 shows the EULs assumed for different building systems in ComStock.
Building Envelope
For the building envelope (windows, wall insulation, and roof insulation), the DEER database was not informative,
because the maximum EUL is capped at 20 years, per CPUC policy. Because of this, we sought out other sources of
envelope lifetime information.
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Figure 4. Reliability analysis for windows in commercial buildings, from 2014 CBSA (Navigant Consulting).
Windows
As part of the DOE-funded Advanced Building Construction initiative, a team collected information on windows
from a variety of commercial building surveys, including a new survey of buildings built since roughly 2010. Un-
fortunately, while most of the surveys did ask about windows, only one survey had enough information to perform a
reliability analysis (because windows are long-lived). This survey was the 2014 Commercial Building Stock Anal-
ysis (Navigant Consulting), which covers the Pacific Northwest. This survey included information on the age of
the building, whether the windows had ever been replaced (and if so, an estimate of the year of replacement), and a
weighting factor to describe how each sample fit into the whole building population. From these data, we performed
a reliability analysis. Figure 4 shows the estimated survival curve. As indicated by the black cross mark on the fig-
ure, the EUL estimate for windows is 70 years. However, the maximum lifespan extends to more than 400 years. In
practice, this indicates that windows on some buildings will never be replaced.
Distribution of Lifespans
The EUL estimates in Figure 4 represent the median lifespan for a given building system. However, not all sys-
tems will fail and be replaced after exactly that amount of time. To represent this diversity of failure rates we use a
distribution.
The simplest approach would be to use a normal distribution centered on the EUL. However, studies of reliability
data show that this is not a good assumption; instead, these studies often use a Weibull distribution to represent life-
times. To check whether a Weibull distribution accurately represented the lifetimes of building equipment, we per-
formed a reliability analysis on data from the ASHRAE Service Life and Maintenance Cost Database (ASHRAE).
This analysis was performed following the methodology described in an ASHRAE journal article (Hiller), and was
implemented using the reliability package (Reid) in Python. Four categories of equipment with a reasonable num-
ber of entries were investigated: air handling units, boilers, chillers, and air source DX equipment (all types of each
available in the database).
As shown in Figure 5, Weibull distributions are a good fit for several categories of HVAC equipment failure data.
Although the ASHRAE database includes data for many different types of HVAC equipment, it was not selected as
the primary source for deriving EULs for ComStock due to the limitations and biases in the database described by
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Figure 5. Survival curves and derived lifespan probability density functions for commercial HVAC equipment.
Table 5. Commercial Equipment Lifetime Weibull Distribution Parameters
its creators (Abramson, Wong, and Herman). Instead, we decided to use the EUL sources described in Table 4 and
develop Weibull curve parameters around these EULs. The selected parameters are shown in Table 5. For the 70-
year EUL, the parameters came from the window reliability analysis. For the 10-, 15-, and 20-year EULs, the only
constraint was to match the EUL definition: 50% of the equipment would still be operable at the EUL. A minimum
lifespan of 60% of the EUL was selected with the assumption that although individual components of a system
might fail, it is unlikely that products on the market routinely fail at a whole-building scale in only a few years. The
200-year EUL parameters were selected to represent no failure for the life of the building.
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Table 6. Space Type Ratio Example
storage. Retail strip mall buildings have different ratios of restaurant space types, with the default being 20%. Two
examples of space type ratios are shown in Table 6. See Table 45 for the space type ratios for all building types.
For geographic granularity, ComStock currently uses one weather file for each county in the United States. For
counties with no weather data available (generally sparsely populated rural areas), data from the nearest weather
station in the same climate zone are used. See (Wilson et al.) for a more in-depth discussion of the weather data
sources, cleaning process, and assignment assumptions.
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4.2 Hours of Operation and Occupancy
4.2.1 Hours of Operation
Overview
Hours of operation are added to the model using operation start time and duration inputs. The start times and dura-
tions are assigned to each model through the sampling process using a set of distributions based on building type.
They are then further broken down by weekday and weekend (Figure 6 and Figure 7). When applied to the model,
the start time and duration are used to establish operating hour start and end times. These times are used to adjust the
other schedules in the model (e.g., lighting, thermostat). This is achieved by stretching or shrinking the schedule on
the temporal axis to align all schedules with the operating hours for the model. Note that because the weekday and
weekend start times and durations are sampled independently, they are not aligned in a given building model.
Figure 44 lists the number of buildings for each building type from each utility’s AMI data set that was considered
during the EULP project. The utility data sets and names are listed in Table 10 of the EULP Final Technical Report
(Wilson et al.). Among the 15 building types considered in ComStock, 14 can be found in the commercial schedules
AMI data set. The only exception is secondary schools, because all schools were grouped together in the AMI data.
We compared the distribution extracted from the commercial schedules AMI data set with the inputs of ComStock at
the start of the EULP calibration. The results of the small office building type are presented in Figure 45 to illustrate
the process, because this building type has the largest sample size in the AMI data set. We considered two day types,
working day vs. non-working day, and two season definitions—one defined by month, and the other defined by daily
average outdoor air temperature. The distribution of hours of operation is more diffuse in the AMI data set than in
the ComStock inputs at the start of EULP calibration. Also, the duration of high load is smaller in the real AMI data
than in the previous ComStock assumptions.
We explored whether and how the hours of operation are influenced by season (in Figure 45) and by utility (in
Figure 46). Some differences can be observed; however, due to the modeling complexity and the desire to create a
nationally applicable approach that avoids overfitting to a specific utility region, we combined the AMI data across
seasons and utilities to generate a distribution of hours of operation for each building type. These new distributions
were applied to ComStock in place of the existing distributions.
4.2.2 Occupancy
Occupancy Density
Occupants are assigned to individual space types as an occupancy density (people/1000 ft2 ). This value, when
multiplied by the total zone floor area, determines the maximum number of people in a zone. Tables 36 to 42 show
the occupancy densities for all space types included in ComStock.
The majority of the ComStock occupancy density values are from the DOE prototype models. These are derived
primarily from ASHRAE 62.1-2004 (ASHRAE), with some space type densities originating from the International
Building Code 2003 (Council). Prototype hotel guest rooms were assumed to have 1.5 occupants each, and occu-
pancy rates for the two hotel models were assumed to be 65% to align with the industry average occupancy rate and
Jiang et al. Rooms were randomly assigned occupants so that 65% of the rooms were occupied. Most of the DOE
prototype hospital and outpatient space type occupancy densities were replaced with values from the 2007 Green
Guide for Healthcare (GGHC), which includes typical occupancy densities for healthcare space types (Green Guide
for Healthcare).
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Occupancy Schedules
The maximum number of people in a zone (calculated from occupancy density and zone floor area) is multiplied
by an hourly occupancy schedule with values ranging from zero to one to capture the variation in building occu-
pancy throughout the day. Figures 8 and 9 show the national base occupancy schedules used in ComStock, broken
down by building type. For the California occupancy schedules, please see figures 47 and 48 in the Appendix. For
buildings in all states except California, the base schedules are the DOE prototype occupancy schedules. California
uses schedules from DEER prototype models (California Public Utilities Commission). The DOE prototype doc-
umentation (Deru et al.) notes that there are few data sources that provide operating schedules for use in building
energy simulations. Thus, the schedules in the prototype models were derived from two primary data sources: the
Advanced Energy Design Guide Technical Support Documents (Jiang et al.; Bonnema et al.; Liu et al.; Pless, Tor-
cellini, and Long) and ASHRAE 90.1-1989 Section 13 (ASHRAE). These schedules were then modified to account
for real-world building operation, based on the experience of the engineers who created the DOE prototype models.
Classroom occupancy schedules for primary and secondary schools were adjusted by factors of 0.75 and 0.70, re-
spectively, to meet the student numbers documented in Pless, Torcellini, and Long. Table 43 lists the data sources for
occupancy schedules in each of the prototype buildings (both DOE and DEER).
These base occupancy schedules are stretched, compressed, or shifted in time to reflect the model’s assigned hours
of operation. For example, the base occupancy schedule for large offices is 9 a.m.–5 p.m. (8 hours of operation). If
one large office model is assigned a start time of 8 a.m. and an operating duration of 10 hours, the base schedules in
the model will be stretched so that the occupied period is an additional two hours long. All schedules in the model
(occupancy, lighting, thermostat, plug load, etc.) are modified in the same manner to ensure coordination between
occupancy, lighting, etc.
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Figure 6. Operating hours’ start time distributions.
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Figure 7. Operating hours’ duration distributions.
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Figure 8. National base occupancy schedules for food service, lodging, healthcare, and
education ComStock building types, excluding California. See Figure 47 for California.
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Figure 9. National base occupancy schedules for retail, office, and warehouse
ComStock building types, excluding California. See Figure 48 for California.
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4.3 Geometry
4.3.1 General
A building’s geometry influences several aspects of its associated building energy model. It impacts the building
envelope by dictating the orientation of windows, the surface-to-volume ratio, and the ratio of one surface type to
another. Geometry also impacts how prevalent solar heat gain is for a given building through the building’s orienta-
tion and shape. ComStock uses seven characteristics to define a building energy model’s geometry: floor area, shape,
aspect ratio, rotation, number of floors, floor height, and window-to-wall ratio (WWR). The majority of these charac-
teristics are assigned to the models as part of the sampling process. Combined, they create a virtual building model
geometry like the example shown in Figure 10. All building models are variations of rectangular prisms with flat
roofs and windows wrapping around the exterior. This simple geometry allows ComStock to easily scale properties
and generate the number of individual building models needed for a national stock model. The following subsections
describe each of the seven characteristics that define a building energy model’s geometry in ComStock.
(Intentionally blank)
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4.3.2 Area
Building floor area is assigned to each model through the sampling process. Probability distributions were generated
using CoStar (CoStar) for most building types. HSIP (U.S. Department of Homeland Security) was used for schools
and hospitals, as neither are well represented in CoStar.
Figure 11 shows the breakdown of each building type in the national building stock by building size category (re-
ferred to as “rentable area”). Notice that the categories are presented as ranges. At this time, ComStock uses the area
in the middle of the range, with the exception of "_1000" and "over_1mil," which use 1000 square feet and 1 million
square feet, respectively. This method could be improved by adding variability to the building areas by selecting a
variety of areas within the range.
Figure 11. Distribution of rentable area by building type. The x-axis represents
rentable area (square feet), and the y-axis represents the fraction of the building stock.
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4.3.3 Building Shape
Building shape is an intermediate characteristic assigned to the model during the sampling process. It is not a direct
input to the model, as ComStock assumes a rectangular footprint for all buildings. Its function is as a dependency for
aspect ratio (see next section 4.3.4). Probability distributions for building shape were generated from 2012 CBECS
data, based on building type (EIA). CBECS uses numbers to represent many of the answers to survey questions, and
ComStock adopted these numbers to represent building shapes.
Figure 12 shows the breakdown of the national building stock by building shape and type.
Figure 12. Distribution of building shape by building type. The x-axis represents
the building shape, and the y-axis represents the fraction of the building stock.
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4.3.4 Aspect Ratio
Aspect ratio is defined as the overall length in the east–west direction divided by the overall length in the north–south
direction. It is assigned to the building models during the sampling process. Probability distributions based on
building shape were generated from 2012 CBECS data (EIA).
Figure 13 shows the breakdown of the national building stock by aspect ratio. The aspect ratios are integers from one
to six, which represent a building’s north-south:east-west ratio.
Figure 13. Distribution of aspect ratio by building type. The x-axis represents the as-
pect ratio (an integer from 1–6), and the y-axis represents the fraction of the building stock.
42
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4.3.5 Rotation
Rotation defines the orientation of the building relative to the cardinal directions. In ComStock, there are eight
rotation options, ranging from 0 to 315 degrees at 45-degree intervals. Ninety and 270 degrees correspond to a north-
south length and east-west width (Figure 14). Rotations are evenly distributed throughout the building stock due to a
lack of available data for more detailed distributions. This will be improved if new data becomes available.
Figure 14. Illustration of building rotation. (a) Buildings with either 90 or 270 degree rotation have
a north-south length. (b) Buildings with either 0 or 180 degree rotation have an east-west length.
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4.3.7 Number of Floors
ComStock assigns a number of floors to each model during the sampling process to create a distribution of building
heights in the stock. This value represents the number of aboveground floors for a given model. No buildings in
ComStock have belowground stories.
For most of the building types, we generated probability distributions based on county and building type using
CoStar (CoStar). We used HSIP (U.S. Department of Homeland Security) for schools and hospitals, as neither are
well-represented in CoStar.
Figure 15 shows the breakdown of the national building stock by number of floors and building type.
Figure 15. Distribution of number of aboveground floors by building type. The x-axis rep-
resents the number of floors, and the y-axis represents the fraction of the building stock.
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4.3.8 Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR)
The ComStock window-to-wall ratio (WWR) assumptions were created as part of the EULP project. WWR is de-
fined as the fraction of abovegrade wall area that is covered by fenestration. Previously, ComStock used the WWR
from the DOE prototype building models. Although each building type had a different WWR, there was no vari-
ability within each building type, which is not representative of the building stock. To address this issue, we ref-
erenced the NFRC Commercial Fenestration Market Study conducted by Guidehouse (Barbour et al.). The study
characterized the national commercial window stock through data collection and analysis. Six primary data sources
representing all regions of the United States were used in the study—a 2020 Guidehouse survey, NEEA CBSA, DOE
Code Study, CAEUS, CBECS, and RECS (multifamily). A variety of window properties were collected, including
WWR, number of panes, frame material, glazing type, low-emissivity coating, gas fill, and many others. In total, the
database contained approximately 16,000 samples, each with an appropriate weighting factor based on the coverage,
completeness, and fidelity of each data source. We incorporated the WWR results from this study into the ComStock
model, and we may incorporate other fields in the future to further refine our window modeling methodology.
From the Guidehouse data, we developed a WWR distribution for each combination of building type, floor area,
and vintage. We first analyzed the WWRs separately by building type, floor area, geographic location, and vintage
to determine which filters were appropriate to use for the final distributions. Geographic location did not have a
significant impact on WWR, so it was left out of the final distributions. As can be seen in Figures 16 and 17, there
is a noticeable change in the WWR of buildings built after 2014, indicating that new buildings are trending toward
larger windows. Similarly, there is a distinct trend in the WWR as a function of floor area; larger buildings tend to
have more windows. Whereas the previous methodology only varied WWR by building type, these new distributions
introduce more WWR variability by considering vintage and floor area.
The WWR distributions for all buildings before and after incorporating the NFRC data are shown in Figure 18. The
distinct bins in the graph are a result of the way WWR is binned in the CBECS Show Card: 0%–1% WWR is binned
to 0.0, 2%–10% to 0.06, 11%–25% to 0.18, 26%–50% to 0.38, 51%–75% to 0.63, and 76%–100% to 0.88. The final
distributions do not change the stock total energy consumption significantly, but they do add realistic variability
within building types. For example, previously, all large offices had the same WWR of 0.15, whereas using the new
distributions, large office WWRs vary from 0.01 to 0.88.
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Figure 17. Window-to-wall ratio by building vintage.
Figure 18. Window-to-wall ratio distribution in all building types before and after incorporating NFRC data.
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4.3.9 Space Programming and Thermal Zoning
As described above, all ComStock building models are a rectangular prism with a prescribed aspect ratio, floor area,
etc. Within each building, there are one or more space types, as described in Section 4.1.6. Space types are repre-
sented within the rectangular geometry as “slices” through the building that correspond to the floor area fractions
of each space type. This is shown in Figure 19(a). In the cases of very small buildings, this can sometimes result in
spaces which are unrealistically long and narrow for space types that make up only a small fraction of the building.
For larger buildings where the length and width are both greater than 37.5 feet, each space type is divided into core-
and-perimeter thermal zones with a 15-foot depth (Figure 19(b)). Notice that the space types adjacent to the shorter
ends of the building are each broken into six thermal zones, whereas the space types in the center of the building
are each broken into three thermal zones. In multistory buildings, space types are often found on more than one
floor, and in some cases, a floor will be a single space type. The downside to this thermal zoning approach is that
thermal zones—and, as a follow-on, the HVAC systems that serve them—may be unrealistically small or large for
certain geometry and building type combinations. These may later be modified to set a minimum and maximum size
threshold for thermal zones.
Figure 19. Example building geometry colored by (a) space type and (b) zone.
47
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4.4 Envelope
4.4.1 Walls
Wall Construction Type
First, we selected the general types of wall construction methods to be represented in ComStock. We chose the
four general wall types commonly used in commercial building energy codes because they cover the most common
wall construction types and can be linked to nominal thermal characteristics. The definitions of these types from
ASHRAE are as follows, with the corresponding ComStock enumerations shown in parentheses:
• Mass wall (Mass): A wall with a heat capacity exceeding (1) 7 Btu/ft2 ·F or (2) 5 Btu/ft2 ·F, provided that the
wall has a material unit weight not greater than 120 lb/ft3 .
• Metal building wall (Metal Building): A wall whose structure consists of metal spanning members supported
by steel structural members (i.e., does not include spandrel glass or metal panels in curtain wall systems).
• Steel-framed wall (SteelFramed): A wall with a cavity (insulated or otherwise) whose exterior surfaces are
separated by steel framing members (i.e., typical steel stud walls and curtain wall systems).
• Wood-framed and other walls (WoodFramed): All other wall types, including wood stud walls.
To determine the prevalence of each wall construction type, we queried a database, LightBox, containing building
type, number of stories, location, and wall construction. The database did not use the same wall construction types
selected for ComStock, so we created a mapping between the database entries and the wall construction types listed
above, as shown in Table 46. Some construction types in the database were excluded from the mapping, either be-
cause the meaning was ambiguous or because they represented an insignificant fraction of the entries in the database.
The excluded constructions represent only 5% of the total samples, with 4.5% labeled “OTHER” (which there was
no clear way to map).
Upon reviewing the data, we identified two instances that were likely misclassifications. The first was buildings
higher than five stories with the wall construction type“WoodFramed”. Historically, it was not possible to use Wood-
Framed construction for buildings over five stories, and even today, this practice is uncommon. Buildings with this
combination were reassigned to “Mass” walls, based on the assumption that people were observing large wood in-
ternal structural members in old buildings and classifying them as WoodFramed. The second was buildings higher
than two stories with “MetalBuilding” walls. Based on experience, this construction technique is commonly re-
served for 1–2 story buildings only. Buildings with this combination were reassigned to “SteelFramed,” based on the
assumption that this would be the most likely alternative classification if a person observed steel structural elements.
After mapping each entry in the database to one of the ComStock construction types, we analyzed the data to de-
termine other building characteristics in the database were correlated with construction type. Older buildings were
slightly more likely to use mass constructions, but the change over time was minor. Construction type varied signif-
icantly as a function of the number of stories. Shorter buildings were much more likely to be wood-framed, whereas
taller buildings were more likely to be mass, and very tall buildings were likely to be steel-framed (steel studs or
curtain wall). Based on a spot-checking of the database, we found the building type classification to be less reliable
than other building characteristics. Although there was some correlation between building type and wall construc-
tion, there was also a correlation between building type and number of stories. Because of the joint correlation, we
selected number of stories instead of building type. There was a clear correlation between climate zone and construc-
tion type—most notably, there was a much lower incidence of mass walls in cold climate zones. There was some
correlation between construction type and building floor area. However, there was also a correlation between the
number of stories and the building area. Because the construction type is physically limited by a building’s height, it
was more logical to use the number of stories as a driving characteristic for construction type. Following this anal-
ysis, we concluded that the number of stories and climate zone should be used as drivers of wall construction type.
The probabilities for each combination of number of stories and climate zone were calculated and then used as the
input distribution for wall construction type in ComStock. This distribution is summarized in Table 47.
48
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Wall System Turnover Rate
As described in Section 4.1.5, we assume that some building systems, including exterior walls, are replaced over
the lifespan of the building. Typically, for exterior walls, the structural elements of the wall are maintained, while
the cladding, insulation, sheathing, etc. are be replaced. As noted in Section 4.1.5, the EUL for exterior walls is
assumed to be 200 years, which means that most buildings are modeled with the walls they were built with. Once the
wall construction type probabilities and distributions of building types, sizes, and vintages are carried through the
sampling process and simulations are created, the distribution of construction types and energy code levels can be
reviewed. As shown in Figure 20, because the majority of the building stock is older, and wall systems are replaced
at a low rate, most of the building floor area is assumed to have walls that follow the oldest energy codes.
Fl
oorAr
eabyEner
gyCodeFol
lowedDur
ingLastWal
lRepl
acementandWal
lType
I
n.Ener
gyCodeFoll
owedDuring I
n.WallConstructi
onType
LastWal
lsRepl
acement Mass
MetalBuilding
ComSt
ockDOERefPr
e-1980 9% 18% 21%
St
eelFramed
ComSt
ockDOERef1980-
2004 7% 13% 16% WoodFr amed
ComSt
ock90.
1-2004
ComSt
ock90.
1-2007
ComSt
ock90.
1-2010
ComSt
ock90.
1-2013
ComSt
ockDEERPr
e-1975 2% 3% 2%
ComSt
ockDEER1985
ComSt
ockDEER1996
ComSt
ockDEER2003
ComSt
ockDEER2007
ComSt
ockDEER2011
ComSt
ockDEER2014
ComSt
ockDEER2015
ComSt
ockDEER2017
% ofTotalI
n.Weighted.Fl
oorAr
ea..
Ft 2foreac
hIn.Ener
gyCodeFoll
owedDuri
ngLastWall
sRepl
acement
.Col
ourshowsdet
ail
saboutI
n.Wal
lConst
ruc
tionType.Themar
ksar
e
l
abelledby% ofTotalIn.Wei
ghted.
FloorArea.
.Ft
2.Percent
sarebasedont
hewholetabl
e.
Figure 20. Weighted floor area by energy code followed during last wall replacement and wall type.
As previously described, most of the building stock’s walls are assumed to be older. Therefore, the thermal perfor-
mance assumptions for older vintages have a much higher impact on the overall heating and cooling demand than
those for newer vintages. The ComStock DOE Ref Pre-1980 assumptions, taken from Deru et al., are originally from
a study of only offices (Briggs, Belzer, and Crawley). Unfortunately, this study no longer appears to be available.
Following the methodology in Deru et al., these values are used for all wall construction types and all building types.
Figure 21 shows the final prevalence of each wall construction type by building type. Most notable is the low preva-
lence of metal building walls across the stock, even in warehouses. This might be surprising, but it is supported by
the available data. Table 50 shows the average wall thermal performance by ASHRAE climate zone.
49
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Fl
oorAr
eabyBui
ldi
ngTypeandWal
lType
I
n.WallConstructi
onType
I
n.Comstoc kBui l
di ngType Mass
Full
ServiceRest aurant 1% 1% MetalBuilding
Qui
ckServiceRest aurant St
eelFramed
Ret ailSt ri
pmal l 2% 4% 4% WoodFr amed
Ret ai
lSt andal one
Smal lOffic e 2% 3% 3%
Medi umOffic e
Lar geOffic e 1% 3% 5%
Primar ySchool 2% 5%
Secondar ySchool 1% 2%
Out pat i
ent 1% 1%
Hospi tal1% 2%
Smal l
Hot el
LargeHot el 2% 3%
War ehouse 5% 9% 9%
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 10% 11% 12% 13% 14% 15% 16% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24%
% ofTot
alI
n.Wei
ght
ed.
FloorAr
ea.
.Ft
2
% ofTot
alIn.
Wei ght
ed.FloorArea..
Ft2foreachIn.
Comstoc
kBuildi
ngType.Col
ourshowsdet
ail
saboutI
n.Wal
lConst
ruc
tionType.Themar
ksar
elabel
ledby% ofTot
al
I
n.Weighted.
FloorArea.
.Ft2.Percentsarebasedonthewholet
able.
Figure 21. Weighted floor area by wall type and building type.
4.4.2 Windows
Window Construction Type
Data from the NFRC Commercial Fenestration Market Study was used to develop the modeling approach for win-
dows in ComStock. This study, conducted by Guidehouse in collaboration with NFRC, characterized the national
commercial window stock through data collection and analysis. Six primary data sources representing all regions
of the United States were used in the study—a 2020 Guidehouse survey, NEEA CBSA, DOE Code Study, CAEUS,
CBECS, and RECS. A variety of window properties were collected, including the window-to-wall ratio, number of
panes, frame material, glazing type, low-E coating, gas fill, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), U-factor, and many
others. In total, the database contained approximately 16,000 samples, each with an appropriate weighting factor
based on the coverage, completeness, and fidelity of each data source. The WWR data was already incorporated
into the ComStock baseline during the EULP project. Some of the other key window properties such as thermal
performance were then used to create the new baseline window constructions and distributions discussed later in this
section. A summary of the data sources and their associated information is shown in Table 51.
Four window properties—number of panes, glazing type, frame material, and low-E coating—were used to create
the baseline window configurations. These four parameters were selected based on which characteristics have the
most impact on window performance, which have the most data available from the various data sources, and which
inputs we trust from the average building owner or survey recipient. The options for each property are shown in
Figure 22.
Figure 22. Window characteristics for number of panes, glazing type, frame material, and low-E coating.
50
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Table 8. Window Configurations
Modeling every combination of these four properties would result in 36 different window configurations, which
would add significant complexity to the sampling process. Instead, we selected 12 combinations to be modeled,
based on which combinations are most common and most realistic. There are four single-pane, six double-pane, and
two triple-pane configurations. The unrealistic/uncommon combinations that were eliminated include:
We created a sampling distribution for the new window constructions for the entire country using the initial data
set. Overall, single-pane windows make up approximately 54% of the stock, double-pane windows make up 46%,
and triple-pane windows make up <1%. Initially, we created distributions based on census division to incorporate
geographic location into the sampling. Upon further analysis, we found that it was also necessary to incorporate the
energy codes into distributions to prevent scenarios where a single-pane window was sampled for a certain location,
but, according to the energy code for that location, a double-pane window was required. For this reason, we modified
the sampling distribution to include two dependencies—climate_zone and energy_code_followed_during_last_-
window_replacement.
To generate these sampling distributions, we used the maximum U-values specified for each climate zone in each
version of ASHRAE 90.1. For each combination of climate zone and energy code, the 12 window configurations
were evaluated to determine which were both realistic and met code (i.e., had a U-value lower than the code maxi-
mum U-value). For the older energy codes, we made several assumptions about technology adoption to determine
which window configurations were realistic:
51
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Table 9. Window Distribution Assumptions Example from Climate Zone 4A
Energy Code Followed During Last Windows Replacement Pre-1980 1980-2004 90.1-2004 90.1-2007 90.1-2010 90.1-2013
Allowable Assembly Maximum U-Value 1.22 0.59 0.57 0.55 0.55 0.42
Allowable Assembly Maximum SHGC 0.54 0.36 0.39 0.4 0.4 0.4
Single - No LowE - Clear - Aluminum U-1.178 SHGC-0.744 X
Single - No LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Aluminum U-1.178 X
SHGC-0.579
Single - No LowE - Clear - Wood U-0.91 SHGC-0.683 X X
Single - No LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Wood U-0.91 SHGC- X X
0.525
Double - No LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Aluminum U-0.749 X X
SHGC-0.484
Double - No LowE - Clear - Aluminum U-0.746 SHGC-0.646 X X
Double - LowE - Clear - Aluminum U-0.559 SHGC-0.386 X X X X
Double - LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Aluminum U-0.557 X X X X
SHGC-0.274
Double - LowE - Clear - Thermally Broken Aluminum U-0.499 X X X X
SHGC-0.378
Double - LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Thermally Broken X X X X
Aluminum U-0.496 SHGC-0.266
Triple - LowE - Clear - Thermally Broken Aluminum U-0.3 X X X X
SHGC-0.328
Triple - LowE - Tinted/Reflective - Thermally Broken X X X X
Aluminum U-0.299 SHGC-0.224
X = This window type meets code minimums
Each combination of climate zone and energy code included 2–12 window configurations that met the criteria. After
limiting the distributions to these configurations, we renormalized the percentages from the national distribution
to 100%. This kept the percentages from the national distribution while also incorporating intelligent assumptions
based on climate zone and energy code. Table 9 provides an example of the window configurations that were sam-
pled for each code year in climate zone 4A.
As can be seen in Table 9, for DOE Ref Pre-1980, the only windows that met code and are realistic are single-
pane or double-pane windows with no low-E coating. For DOE Ref 1980–2004, the maximum U-value dropped
significantly, such that single-pane aluminum windows no longer met code. However, double-pane low-E windows
became available on the market at that time. For 90.1-2004 through 90.1-2010, code required a U-value equivalent
to double-pane low-E or better, and in 90.1-2013, the code improved again, meaning that double-pane low-E with a
thermal break or better was required. This type of logic was applied to all combinations of climate zone and energy
code. Then, we converted the data into the distributions used in sampling.
A small adjustment was made to the final distributions because some states and localities do not follow or enforce
energy codes strictly. Following the code exactly would likely overestimate window performance. Therefore, in
scenarios where single-pane windows were technically below code, we assumed that 5% of all windows in the stock
would still have the worst-performing single-pane windows installed. The distributions were adjusted accordingly
by subtracting 5% total from the double-pane configurations and adding to the single-pane aluminum configura-
tions. After making this manual adjustment, the new distributions had the same overall breakdown as the national
distribution generated from the Guidehouse data—54% single-pane and 46% double-pane .
The U-factors originally ranged from U-1.18 Btu/h·ft2 ·F for the worst-performing single-pane window to U-0.30
Btu/h·ft2 ·F for the best-performing triple-pane window. As mentioned earlier in this section, the maximum U-Factor
that EnergyPlus can model with a simple glazing object is U-1.02 Btu/h·ft2 ·F, which is governed by the limitations
52
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of a 2D heat transfer model when interior and exterior air films are included. Therefore, we adjusted the U-factor
for the first two single-pane windows to be U-1.02 Btu/h·ft2 ·F rather than U-1.18 Btu/h·ft2 ·F. This allowed these
windows to be modeled in ComStock. This results in a slight overestimate of the thermal performance of single-pane
windows.
4.4.3 Roof
Roof Construction Type
First, we reviewed the general types of roof construction methods that could be represented. The three general roof
types commonly used in commercial building energy codes were chosen because they cover the most common
roof construction types and can be linked to nominal thermal characteristics. The definitions of these types from
ASHRAE are as follows:
• Roof with insulation entirely above deck (IEAD): A roof that has all insulation installed above (outside of)
the roof structure and that is continuous (i.e., uninterrupted by framing members).
• Metal building roof: A roof that is constructed with a metal, structural weathering surface; has no venti-
lated cavity; and has the insulation entirely below deck (i.e., does not include composite concrete and metal
deck construction or a roof framing system that is separated from the superstructure by a wood substrate). In
addition, the roof structure consists of one or more of the following configurations: (a) metal roofing in di-
rect contact with the steel framing members, (b) metal roofing separated from the steel framing members by
insulation, or (c) insulated metal roofing panels installed as described in a or b.
• Attic and other roof: All other roofs, including roofs with insulation entirely below (inside of) the roof
structure (e.g., attics, cathedral ceilings, and single-rafter ceilings); roofs with insulation both above and below
the roof structure; and roofs without insulation (excluding metal building roofs).
The analysis of roof properties in EIA, shown in Figure 23, indicates that about 90% of the commercial floor space
covered by ComStock has flat or shallow pitch roofs, and that the large majority of the buildings with flat or shallow
pitch roofs do not have attic space. Given these factors and the complexity associated with modeling the geometry of
pitched roofs, we decided to model the entire stock as having flat roofs.
Figure 23. Weighted floor area by roof tilt and attic presence.
No data sources for roof construction type were found. For buildings outside of California, a single roof construction
type was chosen for each building type. As shown in Table 55, most buildings are assumed to use IEAD roofs, which
is consistent with the assumption of flat roofs. For buildings in California, the construction types from the DEER
prototype buildings were used (California Public Utilities Commission).
53
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is older, and roof systems are replaced at a low rate, most of the building floor area is assumed to have roofs that
follow the oldest energy codes.
Fl
oorAr
eabyEner
gyCodeFol
lowedDur
ingLastRoofRepl
acement
I
n.EnergyCodeFol l
owedDur i
ng
LastRoofReplacement
ComStockDOERefPr e-1980 49%
ComSt ockDOERef1980- 2004 36%
ComSt ock90.
1-2004 1%
ComSt ock90.
1-2007
ComSt ock90.
1-2010 0%
ComSt ock90.
1-2013
ComSt oc
kDEERPr e-1975 7%
ComSt ockDEER1985 2%
ComSt ockDEER1996 1%
ComSt ockDEER2003
ComSt ockDEER2007 0%
ComSt ockDEER2011
ComSt ockDEER2014 0%
ComSt ockDEER2015
ComSt ockDEER2017 0%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20% 22% 24% 26% 28% 30% 32% 34% 36% 38% 40% 42% 44% 46% 48% 50% 52%
% ofTot
alI
n.Wei
ght
ed.
FloorAr
ea.
.Ft
2
% ofTot
alI
n.Wei
ght
ed.
FloorAr
ea.
.Ft
2foreac
hIn.
Ener
gyCodeFol
lowedDur
ingL
astRoofRepl
acement
.Themar
ksar
elabel
ledby% ofTot
alI
n.Wei
ght
ed.
FloorAr
ea.
.Ft
2.Per
cent
sar
ebasedont
hewhol
e
t
able.
Figure 24. Weighted floor area by energy code followed during last roof replacement.
As previously described, most of the building stock’s roofs are assumed to be older. Therefore, the thermal perfor-
mance assumptions for older vintages have a much higher impact on the overall heating and cooling demand than
the assumptions for newer vintages. The ComStock DOE Ref Pre-1980 assumptions, taken from Deru et al., are
originally from a study of only offices (Briggs, Belzer, and Crawley). Unfortunately, this study no longer appears to
be available. Following the methodology in Deru et al., these values are used for all roof construction types and all
building types.
4.4.4 Floor
In ComStock, all buildings are assumed to be built using slab-on-grade construction and to have no cantilevered
thermal zones. Thus, the only heat transfer into the building through floors is assumed to happen through the floor in
contact with the ground. All floors between stories are internal surfaces, and any heat transfer through these surfaces
occurs between zones within the building, not between the building and the outside environment.
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Table 10. Infiltration Rates
During simulation, the infiltration rate is assumed to vary up or down linearly from the baseline rate as a function of
wind speed using the DOE-2 infiltration coefficients. These coefficients correspond to 100% of baseline infiltration
with a 10-mph wind (typical winter condition) or 75% of baseline infiltration with a 7.5-mph wind (typical summer
condition). Unlike the DOE prototype buildings, ComStock assumes that infiltration is not reduced during HVAC
system operation. Infiltration shutoff results in unrealistically low infiltration rates as described in Ng, Dols, and Em-
merich. Thus, the infiltration schedule is set to 100% for all simulation hours. Infiltration is an area where additional
work is likely to improve ComStock.
Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation is not modeled in ComStock because it is not common in the building stock.
55
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4.5 Lighting
4.5.1 Interior Lighting
Interior lighting follows a technology baseline approach, meaning that energy consumed by lighting is set by an
assumed distribution of a particular lighting technology (e.g., T8 or linear LEDs), rather than following a light-
ing power density (LPD) allowance defined in a specific energy code version. The technology baseline approach
recognizes that buildings typically do not use their full lighting power allowance. It also explicitly labels lighting
technology and subsystems in the energy model for granular energy efficiency measure analysis.
Two components specify interior lighting: the lighting power density and the interior lighting schedule. The lighting
power density is determined by the distribution of lighting technologies in the stock, the lighting technology proper-
ties, and the space type properties. The lighting schedule is determined by a default lighting schedule by space type,
occupancy hour adjustments, and magnitude variability.
LPD = General Lighting + Task Lighting + Supplemental Lighting + Wall Wash Lighting
• %LSi is the percent of the target horizontal illuminance value met by a specific lighting system
• RSDD is room surface dirt depreciation, an estimate of how much surface dirt reduces light from reaching the
horizontal plane
• TFi is the total lighting factor, where TF = source luminous efficacy * coefficient of utilization * lighting loss
factor (LFF)
• Source luminous efficacy is the lighting technology efficacy in lumens per watt
• Coefficient of utilization is a term that captures how much lighting from the luminaire reaches the horizontal
plane
• LLF is the lighting loss factor, where LLF = luminaire dirt depreciation (LDD) * lamp lumen depreciation
(LLD)
Values for all these terms are specified in the LSM. The LSM is exact, using a specific lighting product, room geom-
etry, distribution of lighting systems, and other properties to determine the lighting power density allowance for a
given space type. ComStock differs from the LSM in several important ways.
First, ComStock generalizes lighting technology (e.g., T8 linear fluorescent luminaires for general lighting) rather
than modeling a specific lighting product. Source efficacy, lighting loss properties, and radiant fractions are tied to
lighting technology. Source efficacy values come from Buccitelli et al. for older lighting technologies and Yamada
et al. for LEDs. Radiant heat gain fractions come from Fisher and Chantrasrisalai for older lighting technologies and
Liu et al. for LEDs.
Second, lighting technologies are broken out into lighting generations depending on the most common space lighting
technology in that generation, as general lighting accounts for most (∼80%–90%) of total lighting. High bay is
treated as general lighting, and the lighting measure uses the general high bay technology for rooms with height
56
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≥20 ft. Lighting generations 4–8 are all LED, with improving efficacy over time. Lighting generations and their
technologies are detailed in Table 11, and lighting technology properties are detailed in Table 57.
Third, the coefficient of utilization depends on both the luminaire properties and the room geometry, which compli-
cates the calculation in the LSM. The ComStock model associates the coefficient of utilization entirely with room
propertiesthat are independent of lighting technology. ComStock further assumes that rooms of the same space type
have similar enough properties that they can use the same coefficient of utilization. To retain some of the variation
from the luminaire properties, each kind of lighting system has a different coefficient of utilization for each space
type.
Table 58 in Appendix A details the target horizontal illuminance value, the fraction of the target illuminance met by
the kind of lighting system, and the lighting system coefficient of utilization for each lighting space type. Lighting
space types are defined in 90.1 and are determined based on a mapping of openstudio-standards space types to
prototype lighting space types.
Fourth, the LSM assumes a high fraction of non-general lighting systems for certain space types. For example, half
of the illuminance in retail sales spaces is from supplemental and wall wash lighting systems. In older lighting gen-
erations, there is a significant difference in source efficacy between general and non-general lighting systems. In
lighting generation 2, general lighting assumes T8 linear fluorescent lamps at 94 lumens per watt, and supplemental
and wall wash lighting assume halogens at 15 lumens per watt. For retail spaces using the LSM values, that means
half the lighting comes from lighting technologies roughly 6 times less efficient than the general lighting technol-
ogy. Although this may be appropriate for setting a code lighting allowance, most retail spaces meet a much greater
percentage of their illuminance from more efficient general lighting technologies. ComStock adjusts the lighting sys-
tem fractions for commonly used space types so that around 80%–90% of lighting comes from the general lighting
system. These changes are reflected in Table 58 in Appendix A.
Lastly, the LSM offers a generous allowance for lighting power density to account for the lighting loss factor over
time. Including lighting losses and depreciation can result in a lighting power density 40% higher than when these
terms are ignored. This resulted in unreasonably high installed lighting power densities; thus, ComStock assumes
that most existing lighting systems were not designed to account for depreciation over time, and therefore excludes
lighting loss and depreciation terms from the lighting power calculation.
where:
• %LSi is the percent of the target horizontal illuminance value met by a specific lighting system
• Efficacy is the source luminous efficacy of the lighting technology in lumens per watt
• CU is the coefficient of utilization, a term that captures how much lighting from the luminaire reaches the
horizontal plane.
57
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Figure 25. Average interior lighting power density by building type and lighting generation.
58
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Table 11. Interior Lighting Generations and Technologies
Lighting General Lighting General Lighting Task Lighting Supplemental Wall Wash Light-
Genera- Technology (High Bay) Technology Lighting Technol- ing Technology
tion Technology ogy
Finally, an additional level of diversity was added to the process. Small commercial buildings (<50,000 ft2 ) tend to
retrofit their lighting technology less frequently than large commercial buildings (>50,000 ft2 ) (Cadmus Group). To
capture this, we changed the interior lighting lifespan values so that large buildings updated their lighting every seven
59
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years on average and small buildings updated their lighting every 13 years. These time spans average to 10 years,
which matches the median EUL interior lighting used previously.
The distributions were validated against data from the 2015 Lighting Market Characterization Study (Buccitelli
et al.) and the 2019 Solid State Lighting Report (Yamada et al.). ComStock sampling results from 2017 and 2020
simulation years were compared against the data from these two studies from the same years, which is referred to as
“truth” data in this document. The comparison results for 2017 and 2020 simulation years, as well as the data from
the two reports for 2015, 2025, 2030, and 2035, are shown in Figure 26.
Simulation years 2017 and 2020 were the focus of validation because they represent the range of simulation years
typically run for ComStock. Additionally, for a given iteration of the lighting generation distributions, the compari-
son results were inconsistent across simulation years. For example, for a set of lighting generation distributions that
showed close comparisons for 2017 and 2020, years 2025–2035 were significantly different compared to the other
future projections. With improvements to the script that produces the distributions, close comparisons across all
simulation years should be feasible.
Table 60 provides a snapshot of the final probability distributions, which show a gradual shift to higher generations
as the year of the last interior lighting replacement increases. For this code year (ComStock 90.1-2013), generation
1 lighting technologies would likely not be installed. This is reflected in the distributions, as the minimum lighting
generation installed is at least generation 2. The relative popularity of each generation is also apparent in the distri-
butions: generation 2 has a much higher probability of being installed in any year than generation 3, a less popular
technology set.
Figure 26. “Truth” lighting generation distribution data from Buccitelli et al. and
Yamada et al., and comparison of 2017 and 2020 ComStock sampling results.
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There are two primary areas for improvement for this process:
• The first is in the initial Gaussian distributions. Although there is good data about when the lighting genera-
tions were first installed and when they finally lost popularity, information about when the generations peaked
in their install popularity is not available. The current method assumes that the peak is at the midpoint of the
start and end year. This is most likely incorrect. If data on the peak year of each generation could be collected,
this would improve the distribution generation process.
• The second improvement area is the final weighting process. The weights are currently determined using a
guess-and-check method. Further improvements to the distribution script would make this method more robust
(e.g., using an optimization algorithm).
Figure 27 shows the breakdown of lighting generation distribution (by count) by building size for 2018, the year the
current ComStock data set represents the United States building stock. Small buildings are under 50,000 ft2 and are
assumed to have slower retrofit frequency than larger buildings (>50,000 ft2 ). The data trend matches this assump-
tion, as there is a larger percentage of smaller building models that have generation 1 and 2 lighting technologies.
Figure 28 provides a breakdown of lighting generation distributions by building type. There is not huge variation
among the building types. However, building types that are typically smaller (quick service restaurants, small offices,
strip malls) lag behind the other building types in terms of lighting technology. This is consistent with the data in
Figure 27.
Figure 27. Fraction of installed lighting generations by building size (count-based distribution).
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Figure 28. Fraction of installed lighting generation by building type (count-based distribution).
• The peak lighting value in the end-use data derived hourly schedule for office spaces is now 0.85 instead of the
original 0.5.
• Quick service restaurants and kitchens use the FoodService_Restaurant BLDG_LIGHT_EndUseData schedule
rather than the prototype schedule.
• All large hotel guest room lighting schedules use HotelLarge BLDG_LIGHT_GUESTROOM_SCH_2013.
• All small hotel guest rooms follow the same default lighting schedule, with the midday lighting fraction
changed from the prototype schedule value of 0.3 to 0.15. Vacant guest rooms use an always off lighting
schedule.
Interior lighting schedules are adjusted to correspond with the building’s operating hours, as described in Section 4.2.
Figure 29 shows the distribution of base-to-peak ratios (BPRs) in the stock by building type for weekdays and week-
ends. Note that this methodology was not applied to hospital, outpatient, small and large hotel, and warehouse
building types, due to a lack of data.
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Figure 29. Weekday and weekend lighting base-to-peak ratios by building type.
Base-to-peak ratio is on the x-axis, and fraction of the stock is on the y-axis.
Figure 30. Average interior lighting equivalent full load hours by building type.
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4.5.2 Exterior Lighting
Exterior lighting is all outdoor lighting at the building site, including lighting for parking, walkways, doorways,
canopies, building facades, signage, and landscaping.
Lighting power for a given parking area is determined from the 2015 U.S. Lighting Market Characterization report,
which assumes an average of 216 Watts (W) per parking lighting system, or 0.0410 W/ft2 (per equation 4.3). Base
parking lighting power allowance values for each vintage were reduced by a calculated factor such that the building-
count weighted parking lighting power density came out to the 0.0410 W/ft2 target. Note that this calculation is from
2015, so it overestimates the amount of exterior lighting in the stock, which has been changing over to use LEDs.
The values for each vintage are shown in Table 62.
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4.6 Plug and Process Loads
Plug and process loads (PPLs) are all electrical or gas building loads that do not fall under lighting, heating, cooling,
ventilation, or water heating. As lighting and HVAC equipment becomes more efficient, PPLs represent an increas-
ing percentage of commercial building energy consumption—up to 50% in high-performance buildings. This section
describes how electric equipment, gas equipment, data centers, elevators, and kitchen equipment are modeled in
ComStock.
The EPDs are derived from the DOE prototype buildings; however, some of the values were adjusted during the
end-use load profiles calibration process. Using end-use-level data provided by two industry sources for a variety of
building types, we increased or decreased some EPD assumptions to better reflect the actual building data. Building
types that were affected by the EPD adjustments included Full Services Restaurant (FullServiceRestaurant), Primary
School (PrimarySchool), Quick Service Restaurant (QuickServiceRestaurant), Retail (Retail), Secondary School
(SecondarySchool), and Strip Mall (StripMall).
The EPDs are dependent on building type, space type, and DOE Reference Building template. The interior equip-
ment template is a function of the vintage of the building, as well as equipment turnover assumptions. In most cases,
the EPD remains constant for all templates; however, some values increase or decrease in newer templates. An in-
crease in the EPD in newer templates for a particular space type most likely indicates that new types of plug loads
or technologies are assumed to be in the space. By comparison, a decrease in EPD indicates that plug loads in that
space have become more efficient as buildings upgrade to newer equipment. For example, EPDs in the “Mediu-
mOffice - Conference” space type decrease beginning with the 90.1-2004 template, reflecting an assumption that
conference equipment such as projectors and monitors have become more efficient. On the other hand, EPDs in
“MediumOffice - Breakroom” increase drastically, likely due to the addition of new kitchen appliances and acces-
sories.
The EPDs in the ComStock model for each combination of building type, space type, and template are shown in
Table 64.
The space types that contain gas equipment are the laundry and operating room space types in hotels and outpatient
buildings, respectively. Gas laundry equipment represents gas clothes dryers, which are common in commercial
drying applications. In operating rooms, a small amount of gas equipment represents steam sterilizers or autoclaves,
which are used for sterilization during surgical procedures.
Template
Building Type Space Type Pre-1980 1980–2004 90.1-2004 90.1-2007 90.1-2010 90.1-2013
LargeHotel Laundry 170.0 170.0 170.0 170.0 170.0 170.0
Outpatient OR 23.9 23.9 23.9 23.9 23.9 23.9
SmallHotel Laundry 58.4 58.4 129.9 129.9 129.9 129.9
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4.6.3 Data Centers
Data centers are a high-intensity type of PPL that house IT and computing equipment. Large standalone data centers
are not currently modeled in ComStock, but this building type may be added in the future. Instead, ComStock mod-
els data centers as a space type within large and medium office buildings. This is meant to represent an IT closet or
high-performance computer that is located within an office building and used by a business or organization.
The data center is divided into two space types—a core data center and an IT closet. The core data center represents
about 96% of the data center floor area and has an equipment power density of 45 W/ft2 . The IT closet represents
the remaining 4% of the data center floor area and has an equipment power density of 20 W/ft2 . The area-weighted
equipment power density of the whole data center is 44 W/ft2 , which is approximately 20–50 times the equipment
load of most other space types (Goel et al.).
In the DOE large office prototype model, the data center represents 2.5% of the total floor area. The medium office
prototype model does not contain a data center space type. If we used the exact space type ratios from the prototype
models for ComStock, all large offices would contain a data center, but no medium or small offices would contain
this space type. In reality, not all office buildings contain data centers, and they can be present in offices of different
sizes. Therefore, ComStock models data centers in a portion of large and medium office buildings. To determine
these distributions, we used CBECS 2012 data to understand how prevalent data centers are in office buildings of
different sizes. In addition, we used CBECS responses to determine what percent of a typical office building’s floor
area is dedicated to the data center. From this analysis, we decided that 38% of large offices and 20% of medium
offices should contain data centers. In buildings with data centers, that space should make up approximately 2%
of the total square footage of the building. We also determined that data centers are uncommon in small offices;
therefore, there is no data center space type in the small office models.
Data centers follow a very different schedule than the rest of a building’s plug and process loads. This type of IT
equipment often runs 24 hours a day; therefore, the data center space type has a constant schedule year round. The
start and stop time and base-to-peak ratio (BPR) schedule adjustments do not affect the data center space type.
4.6.4 Elevators
Elevators are a high power density equipment load present in many commercial buildings. According to the Amer-
icans with Disabilities Act (ADA), elevators are required in all commercial buildings with three or more stories, or
when the square footage of each floor is more than 3,000 square feet. Although not a requirement, many two-story
buildings also contain elevators for accessibility and convenience. Therefore, ComStock includes elevators in all
buildings with two or more stories.
Hydraulic elevators are assumed to be installed in buildings with two to six stories, and traction elevators are as-
sumed to be installed in buildings taller than six stories. Hydraulic elevators use a fluid-driven piston to lift the cab,
and typically operate at speeds of 150 feet per minute or less. Hydraulic elevators are more affordable and can carry
heavier loads, but because of their slow speeds, they are typically only used in buildings up to five stories. For build-
ings with six or more stories, traction elevators are used because they operate at much higher speeds (up to 500 feet
per minute). Traction elevators use a counterweight and pulley system, making them more energy efficient because
the motor does not have to move as much weight. The drawbacks, however, include high installation and mainte-
nance costs and limits on cab weights. The motor power is assumed to be 16,055 W for hydraulic elevators and
20,370 W for traction elevators.
Elevators are modeled as a zone load in EnergyPlus, meaning the elevator equipment load and associated heat gain
are attributed to a thermal zone. Elevator load is reported out as part of the electric equipment end use. With hy-
draulic elevators, the elevator room is typically located in the basement, so the equipment load and heat gain are
added to the first floor core zone. With traction elevators, the elevator equipment is located on the roof, so the equip-
ment load and heat gain are added to the top floor core zone.
The number of elevators installed in a ComStock building depends on the building type. For most building types,
the number of elevators is based on the floor area. The exceptions are hospitals and hospitality buildings, for which
assumptions are based on the number of hospital beds or hotel rooms, respectively. ComStock differentiates between
passenger elevators and freight elevators in order to properly capture the elevator load in certain building types with
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industrial or service elevators. Passenger elevators are modeled in all building types, whereas freight elevators are
only modeled in hospital, large hotel, large office, and warehouse buildings. The assumptions for the number of
passenger and freight elevators modeled by building type are shown in Tables 65 and 66.
The equipment schedule for elevators is irregular and unpredictable. Therefore, this load does not follow the typical
plug load schedule for its associated space type. We decided to approximate an elevator’s schedule by relating it to
the number of people who are entering or exiting the building at each time step—in other words, the derivative of
the occupancy schedule of the building. We also made assumptions regarding the number of people per elevator ride
(five), the amount of time per ride (calculated from the elevator speed and number of stories), and the amount of
inter-floor traffic that is not captured by the change in building occupancy (added a factor of 1.2x). Elevator data and
metrics like this are not commonly measured or available, so these assumptions are based primarily on engineering
judgment.
From these calculations and assumptions, we derived an elevator schedule for each building type and each day of
the week. An example of the elevator schedule for medium offices is shown in Figure 31 for weekdays, Saturdays,
and Sundays. On weekdays, the most elevator traffic occurs at the beginning and end of the day, when people are
coming in or leaving work for the day. There is also significant traffic during the lunch hour, as some people choose
to leave the building for lunch. At all other times during the workday, the elevator load is approximately 40% of the
total load to account for inter-floor traffic and minimal change in the total building occupancy. For some buildings,
the occupancy schedules are reduced on Saturdays and include no occupancy on Sundays, which is reflected in the
elevator schedule.
Figure 31. Elevator fractional load schedule for medium offices on weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
The final aspect of modeling elevators is accounting for lighting and fans inside the elevator. Although these are
minimal loads compared to the total elevator energy, they are still modeled in ComStock. The elevator lighting and
fans are defined in the model by a total power in watts. These wattage values were calculated based on the number
of elevators and the subsystem template in the model, thereby ensuring higher efficiencies for newer lighting and
ventilation systems. The elevator lighting and fan schedules are assumed to be at full load at all times when the
elevator schedule is greater than 0.
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4.6.5 Kitchen Equipment
Kitchens are one of the most energy-intensive space types. In ComStock, kitchen space types are modeled in six
building types—FullServiceRestaurant, Hospital, LargeHotel, PrimarySchool, QuickServiceRestaurant, and Sec-
ondarySchool. In some building types, namely restaurants, the kitchen space type represents a significant proportion
of the floor area. In these cases, kitchen loads have a major impact on the total building EUI. In hotels, hospitals, and
schools, the kitchen space type only represents a small fraction of the total floor area. Table 14 shows the percent of
the total floor area represented by the kitchen space type for each building type.
Most commercial kitchens contain a variety of both electric and gas equipment. Electric equipment in kitchens
is modeled using an equipment power density value, as other plug loads are modeled. Electric kitchen loads are
included in the electric equipment end use in reporting. In the future, electric kitchen equipment may be split out as
its own end use. The equipment power densities for kitchens are mostly derived from the DOE prototype models. A
breakdown of electric equipment power densities in kitchen space types is shown in Table 15.
Gas equipment is a very prevalent and energy-intensive load in commercial kitchens. Some common pieces of gas
kitchen equipment are broilers, fryers, griddles, ovens, ranges, and steamers. ComStock does not currently model
each type of kitchen equipment separately, but this may be added in the future. Gas equipment in ComStock is
modeled as an energy intensity in BTU per hour per square foot. The gas equipment energy intensity values for
kitchens in each building type are shown in Table 16.
Building Type Space DOE Ref DOE Ref 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- 90.1-
Type Pre-1980 1980– 2004 2007 2010 2013
2004
FullServiceRestaurant Kitchen 15.68 15.68 15.65 15.65 15.65 15.65
Hospital Kitchen 7.50 7.50 7.50 7.50 7.50 7.50
LargeHotel Kitchen 47.20 47.20 47.20 47.20 47.20 47.20
PrimarySchool Kitchen 2.30 2.30 2.25 2.25 2.25 2.25
QuickServiceRestaurant Kitchen 12.92 12.92 12.90 12.90 12.90 12.90
SecondarySchool Kitchen 4.41 4.41 3.57 3.57 3.57 3.57
Building Type Space DOE Ref DOE Ref 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- 90.1-
Type Pre-1980 1980– 2004 2007 2010 2013
2004
FullServiceRestaurant Kitchen 378.8 378.8 205.8 205.8 205.8 205.8
Hospital Kitchen 96.7 96.7 51.2 51.2 51.2 51.2
LargeHotel Kitchen 511.0 511.0 767.0 767.0 767.0 767.0
PrimarySchool Kitchen 302.6 302.6 453.7 453.7 453.7 453.7
QuickServiceRestaurant Kitchen 409.6 409.6 250.9 250.9 250.9 250.9
SecondarySchool Kitchen 354.9 354.9 532.1 532.1 532.1 532.1
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4.7 Service Water Heating
Service water heating (SWH) includes all water heating usage other than space heating and process requirements.
This includes general water heating for uses such as sink faucets and showers, but also building-type-specific uses
like commercial dish washing and laundry. This section describes how SWH equipment, fuel type, and usage is
incorporated into ComStock models.
To represent this variability, we used the CBECS 2012 data to create a distribution of SWH fuels for each combina-
tion of space heating fuel and building type. The resulting distribution of floor area served by various SWH fuels is
shown in Figure 32. As described in Section 4.8, the prevalence of different space heating fuel varies considerably by
county. Because the service water heating fuel depends on the space heating fuel, the probabilities at a stock level are
heavily skewed toward the more common space heating fuels, as shown in Figure 33.
Figure 32. Area-weighted distribution of service water heating fuel by space heating fuel and building type.
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Figure 33. Floor area served by each service water heating fuel by space heating fuel and building type.
The design temperature of standard water heaters in ComStock is 140°F with a 3.6°F deadband temperature differ-
ence allowance. Booster water heaters for kitchens have a target temperature of 180°F; this assumption comes from
the DOE prototype models to account for dishwashing in kitchens. The ambient air temperature for tank heat loss is
assumed to be 72°F. No parasitic losses or part load performance modifiers are included at this time.
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4.7.3 Service Water Heating Efficiencies
ComStock water heater efficiencies follow the requirements of ASHRAE-90.1. ComStock currently only models
non-condensing units, so water heaters with a combustion fuel source are all roughly 80% efficient, whereas electric
resistance water heaters are roughly 100% efficient. The efficiency parameters used to calculate the exact water
heater efficiencies are summarized in Table 67 based on SWH template, SWH fuel type, and SWH heater capacity.
In ComStock, the design flow rates are specified at the space type level. Then, these rates are aggregated to form a
building-level design flow rate. The exception to this is SWH loads for kitchens, which are grouped into their own
separate water heater system. These design flow rates are then multiplied by the usage fraction schedules, which
specify the fraction of the design flow rate drawn for each time step. The usage fraction schedules in ComStock
are derived from the DOE prototype/reference Buildings, and are summarized for each building type in Figures 49
through 61. The default schedule assignments for each space type and vintage are shown in Tables 68 through 70.
However, these schedules are modified according to the hours of operation of the building, as described in Sec-
tion 4.2.
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4.8 Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration
4.8.1 HVAC System Heating Fuel Type
Commercial HVAC equipment can use various heating fuel types, with the most common being natural gas, elec-
tricity, propane, fuel oil, and district heating. To reflect the variability of heating fuels in the real building stock,
the ComStock workflow creates probability distributions of heating fuel types per building type at the county level.
These distributions are used to assign a heating fuel type to each ComStock building model during the sampling
process.
The probability distributions are informed by two data sources. First, there are the CBECS 2012 microdata, which
include data on heating fuel(s), building type, and census division for the surveyed buildings. This data can be used
to produce probability distributions for heating fuel by building type at the census division level. However, several
data sources suggest notable variation within census divisions, which indicates that increased granularity may be
needed (beyond what CBECS can provide). The heating fuel type probability distributions used in ResStock—
which provides data for residential buildings at the county level—were used to add granularity. However, initial
comparisons showed discrepancies between the ResStock data and the CBECS data, which is likely due to inherent
differences between residential and commercial buildings. This indicated that the ResStock data should not be used
directly. To rectify this, the county-level ResStock data were scaled to align with the CBECS data. This preserved
the county-level variation in fuel type prevalence provided by the ResStock data, while also preserving the census
division totals provided by the CBECS commercial data. District heating values were not available in the ResStock
data, so the per-building-type CBECS values were used for all counties in a given census division.
In some cases, filtering down to a specific region and building type in the CBECS data yields very few samples. This
can lead to unreliable conclusions for a region. To mitigate this, we took a blended approach, where some fraction
of the CBECS region fuel type percentage comes from the regional samples only, and some fraction comes from
the national sample for the building type. If more than 70 samples exist for a given building type and region, then
100% of the fuel type prevalence comes from that specific region. (70 was selected as a conservative value using
engineering judgment.) If there are fewer than 70 samples, the number of samples divided by 70 will be the fraction
used for the region, and the remainder will use the national numbers. For example, if a region has 35 office samples,
50% (35/70) of the effective CBECS regional value will come from the CBECS region, and the other 50% will come
from the national CBECS value for the building type. This will cause region/building type combinations with lower
sample sizes to have a stronger inheritance of the national characteristics than the regional characteristics when we
lack sufficient evidence to support this level of detail.
Some commercial building HVAC systems use multiple fuel types. For example, a VAV system with a gas furnace in
the air handling unit and electric resistance coils in the reheat boxes, or a gas furnace DOAS with variable refrigerant
flow (VRF) heat pumps serving the zones. This can complicate the categorization of these systems into a single
primary fuel type. To address this, we make the assumption that HVAC systems can be grouped into one of two
categories: those that use combustion fuel in some capacity, and those that are all-electric, with no combustion
present. We used this categorization methodology because most buildings that use all-electric systems do so because
they do not have natural gas service. Consequently, some models categorized with a combustion fuel type, such
as propane or natural gas, may be assigned a mixed-fuel-type HVAC system type that still contains a large electric
heating component. A full list of ComStock HVAC systems and their fuel type categories are shown in Table 17.
Further detail on model HVAC system assignment methodology can be found in Section 4.8.2.
The county-level prevalences of different heating fuel types are shown in Figure 34 (natural gas), Figure 35 (electric-
ity), Figure 36 (fuel oil), Figure 37 (propane), and Figure 38 (district heating).
Because ComStock samples by building count rather than building area, discrepancies in the fuel type prevalence can
occur when comparing CBECS to ComStock on a floor area basis. This is illustrated by building type in Figure 62
(full service restaurant), Figure 63 (hospital), Figure 64 (large hotel), Figure 65 (large office), Figure 66 (medium
office), Figure 67 (outpatient), Figure 68 (primary school), Figure 69 (quick service restaurant), Figure 70 (retail),
Figure 71 (secondary school), Figure 72 (small hotel), Figure 73 (small office), Figure 74 (strip mall), and Figure 75
(warehouse). Note that differences in fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS on an area basis result in
differences in the amount of floor area served by HVAC equipment for that fuel type in ComStock models compared
to CBECS.
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Figure 34. Fraction of ComStock models using natural gas heating per county.
Figure 35. Fraction of ComStock models using electric heating per county.
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Figure 36. Fraction of ComStock models using fuel oil heating per county.
Figure 37. Fraction of ComStock models using propane heating per county.
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Figure 38. Fraction of ComStock models using district heating per county.
In several cases, the combinations of survey responses related to the HVAC system were questionable, incomplete, or
conflicting based on engineering judgment. This could be due to the survey respondent lacking information about the
nuances of the building’s HVAC system, the survey respondent skipping relevant questions, or the building having
multiple system types, perhaps due to various activities in the building or retrofits and expansions over time. Any of
these issues could create a combination of equipment for a CBECS sample that would be difficult to translate into a
single, comprehensive HVAC system type without firsthand knowledge of the building. Thus, reliably discerning an
HVAC system type from the survey questions can be challenging for some of the CBECS samples and requires some
degree of assumption.
Based on survey responses, some CBECS samples appear to utilize multiple types of HVAC systems. For example,
one sample responded affirmatively to having a chiller, packaged terminal air conditioners (PTACs), heat pumps,
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and a swamp cooler. However, there is no indication as to the fraction of the building serving each system type in the
survey. Additionally, ComStock is not trying to model buildings with several HVAC system types. To address this,
we needed to determine prioritization rules when multiple system types for a single CBECS sample appeared to be
prevalent. To achieve this, we grouped systems into the following four categories: VAVs, single-zone RTU, DOAS
with zone terminal units (e.g., DOAS with heat pumps, VRF), and miscellaneous single-zone equipment.
Table 17. Fuel Type Category for ComStock HVAC System Types
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There were several cases where the assigned HVAC system for a CBECS sample was unlikely given the size and
type of the building. For example, only a small percentage of small office buildings would be expected to use large,
multi-zone VAV systems. Similarly, only a small percentage of very large office buildings would be expected to use
single-zone RTUs or zone terminal equipment with no DOAS. To address this, we recategorized some system type
assignments based on the building type and size to ensure that the resulting probability distributions were realistic.
Overall, we produced 603 probability distributions from the CBECS HVAC analysis, with dependencies based on
building type, census division, and heating fuel type. These distributions are used with the ComStock sampling
process, described in Section 3.4, which ensures that HVAC system types are applied to the correct proportion of
models. The prevalence of each HVAC system type in ComStock for all building types is shown in Figure 76 through
Figure 89.
ComStock design outdoor air ventilation rates follow the requirements set forth by ASHRAE Standard 62.1: Venti-
lation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality (non-California models), or by DEER (California models). Both of these
sources dictate the minimum design outdoor air flow rate by space type. The minimum outdoor air requirements
for each space type are composed of a flow rate per person, a flow rate per area, and in some cases, an exhaust rate.
Combined, these components determine the design outdoor air requirement for each space and its respective HVAC
system. Table 18 and Table 19 show the average design outdoor air flow rate per area (cfm/m2 ) for non-California
models and California models, respectively. These averages are influenced by the number of buildings of each type
and their vintage. Both methods are heavily influenced by the space type composition of the model; ComStock mod-
els assume space type ratios for building types, with some building types having variation in the space type ratios.
ComStock space types are described further in Section 4.1.6.
Some ComStock HVAC system types are residential style systems (denoted “residential” in Table 17). These systems
do not include ventilation air and are an exception to the aforementioned ASHRAE-62.1 outdoor air methodology.
Although commercial buildings all require outdoor ventilation air per code, some commercial buildings in the stock
use residential systems without outdoor air. This is reflected in ComStock through the use of these residential system
types. ComStock’s HVAC system selection methodology is described further in Section 4.8.2.
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Table 18. Design Outdoor Air Rates by Building Type and HVAC Code Template for Buildings Outside California
Table 19. Design Outdoor Air Rates by Building Type and HVAC Code Template for Buildings Inside California
Building Type DEER DEER DEER DEER DEER DEER DEER DEER DEER
Pre- 1985 1996 2003 2007 2011 2014 2015 2017
1975 (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf) (cfm/sf)
(cfm/sf)
FullService- 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540 0.540
Restaurant
Hospital - 0.152 0.152 0.152 0.152 0.152 0.152 0.152 -
LargeHotel 0.000 0.104 0.104 0.104 0.104 0.104 0.104 0.104 0.104
LargeOffice 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108
MediumOffice - 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108
Outpatient 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108 0.108
PrimarySchool - 0.447 0.447 0.447 0.447 0.447 0.447 0.447 0.447
QuickService- 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439 0.439
Restaurant
RetailStandalone 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268 0.268
RetailStripmall 0.327 0.323 0.323 0.323 0.323 0.323 0.325 0.323 0.323
SecondarySchool 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433 0.433
SmallHotel 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069 0.069
SmallOffice 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077
Warehouse 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150 0.150
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4.8.5 Fan Systems
Fans are used in all ComStock HVAC systems except those that rely on radiant heat transfer, such as baseboards.
Fans induce pressure in the air stream of HVAC equipment, producing the airflow needed for space conditioning
and/or outdoor air ventilation.
Fan Power
Fan power determines the amount of energy it takes a fan system to provide a certain amount of airflow. The fan
power requirements of each HVAC system are a function of the total pressure drop of the air stream that the fan
system will need to overcome (e.g., from filters, coils, air ducts) as well as the efficiency of the fan blades and fan
motor.
Fan power in ComStock is determined by ASHRAE-90.1 code requirements. ASHRAE-90.1 determines fan power
primarily based on the system type. Constant air volume, variable air volume, and unitary zone equipment are all
assigned different fan power allowances.
For implementation in ComStock, fan power is determined based on the static pressure of the air delivery system, the
efficiencies of the fan/motor system, and the airflow of the system. The static pressure is based on the HVAC system
type and the maximum airflow of the system, as shown in Table 20. The fan motor efficiencies are a function of the
motor size and HVAC code year, as shown in Table 73.
The addition of energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) in HVAC air loops can add additional static pressure to the air
system and therefore result in a higher fan power requirement. ComStock accounts for this additional fan power in
the ERV wheel power rather than the fan itself; this allows for improved accuracy during ERV bypass modes (where
the airflow bypasses the additional static pressure of the ERV system). See Section 4.8.10 for more information on
ComStock ERV systems.
Fan Type Max Airflow Pressure Fan Power Fan Impeller Motor Total Fan
(cfm) Rise (in. Minimum Efficiency Efficiency Efficiency
H2 O) Flow Frac-
tion
Constant <7,437 2.5
Volume and ≥7,537 and 4.46 1
DOAS <20,000 (Fan
0.65 See motor
≥20,000 4.09 Impeller
efficiency
Variable <4,648 4 Eff.) X
lookup
Air ≥4,648 and 6.32 0.25 (Motor
table
Volume <20,000 Eff.)
≥20,000 5.58
PTAC/PTHP, >0 1.33 1
WSHP, VRF 0.55
Four Pipe >0 1.09 1
Fan Coil
Unit Heater >0 0.2 1
Fan Controls
This section describes the operation of fan systems during the hours a building is occupied. Details on the operation
of fan systems during unoccupied hours are described in Section 4.8.8.
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HVAC Systems Not Providing Outdoor Air
Systems that do not directly provide outdoor air, such as zone-level unitary systems coupled with a DOAS, do not
need to run fans continuously. Therefore, these systems are controlled to cycle the fan system on only when required
to maintain zone thermostat set points. Otherwise, the fans are allowed to turn off. This is also the control logic for
any residential-style system in ComStock that does not provide outdoor air.
Pump Power
Pump power is a function of the pressure head of the hydronic loop and the pump efficiency. The pressure heads
in ComStock hydronic systems are set to reflect the baseline requirements specified in ASHRAE-90.1, noting that
each hydronic loop type has its own specifications. The pressure heads used for the various ComStock hydronic loop
types are specified in Table 21. Primary-only pump configurations use a single hydronic loop system between the
boilers/chillers and the heating/cooling coils for space conditioning. A primary-secondary system uses a primary
loop for circulating water between the boilers/chillers, and a secondary loop for supplying the the plant fluid to the
heating/cooling coils. Pump motor efficiencies are derived using the same motor efficiency lookup tables used for
fans (Table 73).
Pump Controls
All pumps in ComStock are set to use intermittent controls, meaning that they can cycle off when there is no load
present in the loop. Constant volume pumps are controlled to ride the pump curve, as specified by ASHRAE-90.1,
whereas variable speed pumps can adjust their speed to modulate flow as needed. Variable speed pumps all have a
minimum flow ratio of 0% in ComStock. This value is likely too low and underestimates pumping energy, as most
pump systems can only reduce flow as low as 30%–50% in order to maintain proper operation of chillers, boilers,
etc. The assignment methodology for variable speed pumps is specified in Table 21.
Table 21. Pump Configuration and Pressure Rise for Hydronic Loops
Loop Type Pump Configura- Primary Pump Secondary Pump VFD Pump?
tion Head (ft w.c.) Head (ft w.c.)
Hot Water Loop Variable speed
Primary-only 60 - when building area
District Heating
Loop >120,000 ft2
Water-Cooled Constant-primary, 15 45 Secondary pump
Chiller Loop variable-secondary always variable
speed
Air-Cooled Variable speed
Primary-only 60 - when cooling
Chiller Loop
District Cooling capacity >300 tons
Loop
Condenser Water Primary-only 50 - Always constant
Loop speed
GSHP Condenser Primary-only 60 - Always constant
Water Loop speed
Thermostat set points are implemented in ComStock through square-wave schedules. Each model is assigned a set
point temperature, which is the temperature the HVAC system must maintain during occupied hours, and a setback
temperature, which is the temperature the HVAC system must maintain during unoccupied hours (note that some
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models have no setback temperature). The set point and setback temperatures used in the models are described later
in this section. The timing of the set point and setback temperatures align with the building occupancy schedules
discussed in Section 4.2.
All ComStock building types, excluding hospitals, outpatient, warehouses, and hotels, utilize building automa-
tion system (BAS) data to inform distributions of thermostat set points. The methodology behind this approach is
described in this section. The intent is to include heating and cooling thermostat set point variability between Com-
Stock models to reflect the thermostat set point variability between real buildings. For example, some offices could
be expected to set their heating thermostat to 72°F, whereas others might set it to 70°F. The ComStock methodology
allows this variation to exist in the models.
Building automation data from three industry-provided private data sources with over 3,700 buildings were used to
derive the distributions of thermostat set points that are used to assign set points to the applicable ComStock models.
Table 22 shows the counts of buildings with thermostat data available in the data set by building type. The data set
includes the time series heating and cooling set points that were used to determine the occupied heating and cooling
set points for each building. In turn, these were used to create probability distributions of thermostat set points by
building type when aggregating across the data set. For building types with less than 25 samples in the data set,
the distribution for all building types was used, as smaller sample sizes cannot reliably be extrapolated to represent
a population. The resulting heating and cooling probability distributions, per applicable building type, are shown
in Figure 39 and Figure 40, respectively. Note that some outliers exist in the data set at very low prevalence, such
as offices with heating set points of 61°F. These outliers are incorporated into ComStock models at a similar low
prevalence to reflect the wide diversity of commercial buildings.
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Figure 39. Heating thermostat set point (Fahrenheit) distributions per building type.
Figure 40. Cooling thermostat set point (Fahrenheit) distributions per building type.
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Table 23. Fraction of ComStock Buildings With Thermostat Setbacks by Building Type
The prevalence of thermostat setbacks in ComStock models is determined by building type using CBECS 2012.
Each building type has some fraction of buildings with a thermostat setback, and some fraction without. The CBECS
survey does not provide details on thermostat set point and setback temperatures, but it does provide survey re-
sponses as to whether heating and cooling setbacks are used, and whether these setbacks are manual. The survey
responses are summarized by building type in Figure 90. However, it seems likely that many respondents who claim
to implement manual setbacks do not reliably do so; we made a conservative assumption that only 20% of manual
setbacks would be counted as reliably practicing thermostat setbacks (manually adjusting the thermostat every night
before leaving and every morning upon entering). The fraction of ComStock models that include thermostat setbacks
is shown in Table 23. Note that the timing of the thermostat setbacks coincides with the assigned hours of operation
for a specific model, the methodology for which is described in Section 4.2.
The magnitudes of the temperature setbacks are determined using the same data sets and methods described in Sec-
tion 4.8.7 for thermostat set points; probability distributions are created for each building type. The relationship
between the thermostat set points and the delta setbacks is shown in Figure 91. The resulting heating and cooling
thermostat delta setback temperature probability distributions, for each applicable building type, are shown in Fig-
ure 41 and Figure 42, respectively.
83
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Figure 41. Thermostat heating setback delta temperature probability distributions per building type.
Figure 42. Thermostat cooling setback delta temperature probability distributions per building type.
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4.8.8 Unoccupied Air Handling Unit Operation
Commercial buildings require constant design outdoor air ventilation rates when the building is occupied per
ASHRAE-90.1. For air handling units (AHUs), the outdoor air is generally mixed with the supply air. This requires
constant supply fan operation to maintain the outdoor air requirements established by ASHRAE-62.1 (ASHRAE).
However, AHUs do not need to provide outdoor ventilation air when the building is unoccupied. Therefore, ASHRAE-
90.1 requires outdoor air dampers to close when the building is unoccupied, and to only cycle on supply fans as
needed to maintain thermostat set points. This control scheme can have a large impact on energy usage, and data
suggests that not all buildings implement these controls in their AHU systems. This section discusses ComStock’s
methodology for including the prevalence of different unoccupied AHU control schemes observed in real buildings,
which follows the methodology used in CaraDonna and Dombrovski.
An industry-provided BAS data set of over 5,700 AHUs was used to inform the prevalence of three unoccupied AHU
operation modes. The data set includes time series (hourly) BAS variables for “Occupied Status” (describes whether
the AHU was in an occupied mode for that hour), “Fan Status” (describes whether the fan was used for that hour),
and “Ventilation Status” (describes whether outdoor ventilation air was used for that hour). Counts of AHUs and
buildings by building type in the data set are shown in Table 24, and the three unoccupied AHU shutdown control
schemes are summarized in Table 25.
The data set suggests that 27% of AHUs use scheme 1 (least efficient), 50% of AHUs use scheme 2 (more efficient),
and 23% of AHUs use scheme 3 (most efficient; ASHRAE-90.1 required). The prevalence of the AHU unoccupied
control schemes by building type is shown in Table 74. These probability distributions are used in ComStock sam-
pling to set the fraction of buildings utilizing the discussed control schemes, by building type, for models that use
AHU-based HVAC systems. Non-AHU HVAC system types are not applicable to this methodology, nor are building
types not listed in Table 74. Note that building types with less than 25 buildings in the BAS data set (Table 24) use
the “All Types” distribution of the data set at large, as fewer than 25 samples cannot reliably be used to represent a
population.
Table 24. Site and AHU Counts of Time Series BAS Data per Building Type
Table 25. AHU Operating Mode Schemes Used During Scheduled Unoccupied Times
85
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4.8.9 Demand Control Ventilation
Demand control ventilation (DCV) acts to reduce outdoor air ventilation during periods of detected low occupancy.
Occupancy levels are generally detected through the use of CO2 sensors located directly in the space or within the
HVAC system.
DCV is included in ComStock models when required by the governing ASHRAE-90.1 energy code for the spe-
cific spaces/systems in the model. ComStock gathers the necessary criteria for determining DCV requirements and
includes DCV functionality only if the space/system requires it. The requirement criteria for DCV include space
floor area, space design occupant density, system economizer prevalence, system design outdoor air flow rate, and
system energy recovery prevalence. The 90.1 code year for a model is based on the year of the model’s last major
HVAC replacement. Code year assignment and system turnover assumptions are described further in Section 4.1.5.
A summary of the floor area served by a system with DCV is shown in Table 75. Note that DCV is not required
by ASHRAE 90.1 when an HVAC system has an ERV. One important observation from these data is that no office
buildings include DCV. This is because office buildings are currently modeled using a single, blended space type that
is a fractional mix of open offices, enclosed offices, conference rooms, etc. The occupancy density of this blended
space does not exceed the DCV thresholds in ASHRAE 90.1. This leads to unrealistically low (0%) DCV in office
buildings. Another important observation is that DCV is not modeled in any of the buildings in California (which
use the DEER data set), although this does not align with the newer versions of Title 24. DCV is expected to be
implemented in California buildings in the near future.
ERVs are included in ComStock model HVAC systems only when required by the governing energy code for the
specific system. This determination is made using OpenStudio-Standards, where the necessary ComStock model
properties are gathered to determine whether an ERV is required for each system. These properties include the
climate zone, percent outdoor air, and design supply airflow rate, aligning with ASHRAE-90.1 Table 6.5.6.1 for the
respective energy code year followed. A summary of the floor area served by systems with energy recovery is shown
in Table 26.
Table 26. Fraction of Floor Area Served by HVAC Systems With Energy Recovery by Building Type and Code Year
An enthalpy wheel ERV system (rotary) is added to the HVAC systems in ComStock models where an ERV is
determined to be required. The effectiveness of the system is 50% for all conditions, aligning with the requirements
of ASHRAE-90.1. Economizer lockout and supply air bypass for temperature control are included. The defrost type
is exhaust only, which temporarily bypasses the supply side of the heat exchanger to allow warmer exhaust air to
remove frost uninhibited when needed.
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4.8.11 Air-Side Economizers
Air-side economizers reduce HVAC cooling energy by increasing the amount of outdoor ventilation air during times
when the temperature and/or enthalpy are beneficial for cooling. For example, if the outdoor air temperature is
55°F when the building needs cooling, the HVAC system can increase the amount of outdoor ventilation air being
delivered to the space to satisfy some or all of the cooling requirement in place of mechanical cooling.
Air-side economizers are included in ComStock model HVAC systems when required by the governing code. This
determination is made using OpenStudio-Standards, where the necessary ComStock model properties are gathered
to determine whether an economizer is required for each system. These properties include the climate zone, percent
outdoor air, and design supply airflow rate, aligning with ASHRAE-90.1 Table 6.5.6.1 for the respective energy code
year followed. A summary of the floor area served by HVAC systems with energy recovery is shown in Table 27.
The economizer control type is differential enthalpy, which allows economizer operation when the outdoor air
enthalpy is less than the return air enthalpy. Integrated controls, which allow the economizer to work in conjunction
with the cooling equipment, are added when required by code.
Table 27. Fraction of Floor Area Controlled by HVAC Systems With Economizers by Building Type and Code Year
Building Type Pre- 1980– 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- DEER DEER DEER
1980 2004 2004 2007 2010 2013 pre- 2015 2017
1975–
2014
FullService- 0.192 0.273 0.304 0.285 0.350 0.281 0 0.026 0.052
Restaurant
Hospital 0 0.393 0.32 0.441 0.537 0.18 0 0 0
LargeHotel 0.350 0.064 0.071 0.061 0.045 0.069 0 0 0
LargeOffice 0.184 0.323 0.377 0.363 0.442 0.422 0 0.107 0.072
MediumOffice 0.367 0.411 0.419 0.419 0.515 0.468 0 0.037 0.069
Outpatient 0 0.237 0.278 0.276 0.334 0.292 0 0.017 0.042
PrimarySchool 0.245 0.340 0.413 0.367 0.419 0.348 0 0 0
QuickService- 0.053 0.129 0.084 0.102 0.167 0.155 0 0.048 0.009
Restaurant
RetailStandalone 0.442 0.293 0.323 0.325 0.413 0.367 0 0.061 0.065
RetailStripmall 0.444 0.377 0.422 0.400 0.466 0.428 0 0.028 0.019
SecondarySchool 0.284 0.395 0.402 0.439 0.506 0.431 0 0 0
SmallHotel 0 0 0.16 0.004 0 0 0 0 0
SmallOffice 0.217 0.175 0.182 0.180 0.203 0.200 0 0.008 0.021
Warehouse 0.274 0.114 0.130 0.130 0.148 0.135 0 0.076 0.052
4.8.12 Furnaces
Furnaces are used in a variety of HVAC equipment for space heating through the direct combustion of a fuel. For
ComStock models, the fuel type can be natural gas, propane, or fuel oil. The following ComStock system types use
furnaces: direct evaporative coolers with forced air furnace, gas unit heaters, PSZ-AC with gas coil, PTAC with gas
coil, residential AC with residential forced air furnace, and residential forced air furnace.
Furnace Efficiencies
Furnaces in ComStock are all assumed to be standard, non-condensing types at this time. Rated efficiency assign-
ments are a function of capacity and in-force HVAC template code. The furnace efficiency assignments are summa-
rized in Table 28.
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Table 28. Furnace Efficiency by Capacity and Code Year
4.8.13 Boilers
Boilers create hot water for heating in buildings. The following ComStock HVAC types use boilers for heating:
baseboard gas boiler, DOAS with fan coil air-cooled chiller with boiler, DOAS with fan coil chiller with boiler,
DOAS with fan coil district chilled water with boiler, DOAS with water source heat pumps cooling tower with boiler,
direct evaporative coolers with baseboard gas boiler, PSZ-AC with gas boiler, PTAC with gas boiler, PVAV with
gas boiler reheat, VAV air-cooled chiller with gas boiler reheat, VAV chiller with gas boiler reheat, and VAV district
chilled water with gas boiler reheat.
Boiler Efficiencies
At this time, boiler systems in ComStock are all gas-fired (or other combustible fuels) storage tank non-condensing
units. A single boiler is used to meet the hot water load for the entire building. Rated efficiency assignments are a
function of the HVAC code year and boiler capacity, mirroring the requirements of ASHRAE-90.1, and are summa-
rized in Table 29.
Table 29 shows the older DOE reference building templates using a constant efficiency curve for the boiler (“Boiler
Constant Efficiency Curve”). Therefore, these boilers do not currently have efficiency modifications at different
part load conditions. This likely underestimates cycling losses that boilers experience at lower PLRs, and may
underestimate their gas usage. The 90.1 templates for 2004 through 2010 exclusively use a performance curve for
boilers with no turndown controls (“Boiler With No Minimum Turndown”). This provides some efficiency loss,
as PLR is reduced. For 90.1-2013 and beyond, performance curves for boilers with minimum turndowns (“Boiler
With Minimum Turndown”) are added for larger boiler systems. This provides a slight performance improvement
compared to boilers with no minimum turndown. All three curves are illustrated in Figure 92.
Boiler Controls
ComStock boilers use 180°F hot water loops with flow that leaves the set point modulated, meaning the boiler model
internally varies the flow rate so that the temperature leaving the boiler matches a set point. The delta T of the loop is
20°F.
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Table 29. Boiler Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
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4.8.15 Air-Source Heat Pumps
Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) provide electric heating using a reverse vapor compression cycle. This generally
provides a higher COP option for electric heating compared to standard electric resistance electric heating. In most
cases, ASHPs use the same air-cooled DX system for both DX heating and DX cooling. ASHPs can be split sys-
tem, packaged units, or through-the-wall packaged terminal heat pumps (PTHP). The following ComStock HVAC
systems types use ASHPs: packaged single zone heat pump (PSZ-HP) and PTHP.
ASHP sizing is often based on the design cooling requirements. Because the DX cooling and heating use the same
compressor system, the capacities for each are coupled. ASHPs generally have a minimum operating temperature,
below which the DX heating is disabled due to lack of capacity and efficiency. To remedy this, backup heating
is often included in colder climates, and for any system where the design heating load is higher than the design
cooling load. ComStock ASHP sizing follows this methodology: ASHPs are sized to meet the design cooling load,
and backup electric heating is added to the system to meet the design heating load when the available DX heating
capacity is unavailable or insufficient. The minimum temperature for compressor operation for ComStock heat pump
systems is 17°F PTHP and 10°F for PSZ-HP.
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Table 30. Air-Source Heat Pump Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
temperature (EIRFT) modifier, and EIR as a function of part load ratio (EIRFPLR) modifier. For each time step,
the EIR modifier function outputs are multiplied by the ACC’s rated EIR (except for the PLR curve output, which
is divided). This provides the realized EIR for the time step. Similarly, the CAPFT modifier function output is
multiplied by the ACC’s nominal capacity every time step to get the actual available capacity for that time step. The
curve assignments are summarized in Table 31, and the curve parameters are specified in Table 78. The curves are
also illustrated in Figure 103, Figure 104, and Figure 105.
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Table 31. Air-Cooled Chiller Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
Model Minimum Maximum Minimum Minimum Capacity EIR Function EIR Function Notes
Template Capacity Capacity Full Inte- Function of of Tempera- of PLR
(Tons) (Tons) Load Ef- grated Temperature ture (Schedule (Schedule
ficiency Part (Schedule Name) Name)
(kW/ton) Load Name)
Value
(kW/ton)
Pre-1980 0 149.99 1.303 - ChlrAir_Re- ChlrAir_- From 90.1-
ChlrAir_-
cipQRatio_- RecipEIRRa- 1989
RecipEIRRa-
Pre-1980 150 299.99 1.332 - fTchwsToad- tio_fTchw- From DOE
tio_fQRatio
Pre-1980 300 no max 1.332 - bSI sToadbSI Reference
1980-2004 150 no max 1.407 1.407 Buildings
90.1-2004 0 no max 1.256 1.153 AirCooled_-
AirCooled_- AirCooled_- Chiller_All- From 90.1-
90.1-2007 0 no max 1.29 1.164
Chiller_2010_- Chiller_2010_- Capacities_- 2004 Table
90.1-2010 0 149.99 1.255 0.941
PathA_CAPFT PathA_EIRFT 2004_2010_- 6.8.1A
90.1-2010 150 no max 1.255 0.941
90.1-2013 0 149.99 1.25 0.96 EIRFPLR
90.1-2013 150 no max 1.25 0.94
90.1-2013 0 149.99 1.188 0.876 ChlrAir_-
ChlrAir_Scrol- ChlrAir_-
90.1-2013 150 no max 1.188 0.857 ScrollEIRRa- Path A
lQRatio_fTch- ScrollEIRRa-
90.1-2016 0 149.99 1.188 0.876 tio_fTchw- Efficiencies
wsToadbSI tio_fQRatio
90.1-2016 150 no max 1.188 0.857 sToadbSI
90.1-2019 0 149.99 1.188 0.876
90.1-2019 150 no max 1.188 0.857
chiller with baseboard electric, VAV chiller with PFP boxes, VAV chiller with district hot water reheat, and VAV
chiller with gas boiler reheat.
The cooling tower assumptions used in ComStock are primarily code-driven and are summarized in Table 33.
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Table 32. Water-Cooled Chiller Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
Model Compressor Minimum Maximum Minimum Minimum Capacity EIR EIR Notes
Template Type Capacity Capacity Full Inte- Function Function Function
(Tons) (Tons) Load Ef- grated of Tem- of Tem- of PLR
ficiency Part perature perature (Schedule
(kW/ton) Load (Schedule (Schedule Name)
Value Name) Name)
(kW/ton)
Pre-1980 0 149.99 0.852 - From DOE
Pre-1980 150 299.99 0.782 - Reference
Pre-1980 300 no max 0.688 - ChlrWtr- ChlrWtr- Buildings
1980–2004 0 149.99 0.926 0.902 PosDispPath- PosDispPath-
1980–2004 150 299.99 0.837 0.782 AAll- AAll- From
1980–2004 300 no max 0.676 0.664 QRatio- EIRRatio_- 90.1-1989
90.1-2004 0 149.99 0.79 0.676 fTchws- fTchw-
90.1-2004 150 299.99 0.718 0.628 TcwsSI sTcwsSI Path A
90.1-2004 300 no max 0.639 0.572 Efficiencies
90.1-2007 0 74.99 0.78 0.63 WaterCooled_- WaterCooled_-
90.1-2007 75 149.99 0.775 0.615 PositiveDis- PositiveDis-
90.1-2007 150 299.99 0.68 0.58 placement_- placement_-
90.1-2007 300 no max 0.62 0.54 Path A
Chiller_- Chiller_-
90.1-2010 0 74.99 0.78 0.63 Minimum
LT150_- LT150_- ChlrWtr-
90.1-2010 75 149.99 0.775 0.615 Efficiencies
2010_- 2010_- PosDispPath-
90.1-2010 Rotary 150 299.99 0.68 0.58 PathA_- PathA_- AAll-
90.1-2010 Screw 300 no max 0.62 0.54 CAPFT EIRFT EIRRatio_-
90.1-2013 0 74.99 0.75 0.6
fQRatio
90.1-2013 75 149.99 0.72 0.56
90.1-2013 150 299.99 0.66 0.54
90.1-2013 300 599.99 0.61 0.52
90.1-2013 600 no max 0.56 0.5
90.1-2016 0 74.99 0.75 0.6 ChlrWtr- ChlrWtr-
90.1-2016 75 149.99 0.72 0.56 PosDisp- PosDisp-
90.1-2016 150 299.99 0.66 0.54 PathAAll- PathAAll- Path A
90.1-2016 300 599.99 0.61 0.52 QRatio- EIRRatio- Efficiencies
90.1-2016 600 no max 0.56 0.5 fTchws- fTchws-
90.1-2019 0 74.99 0.75 0.6 TcwsSI TcwsSI
90.1-2019 75 149.99 0.72 0.56
90.1-2019 150 299.99 0.66 0.54
90.1-2019 300 599.99 0.61 0.52
90.1-2019 600 no max 0.56 0.5
Model Equipment Fan Fan Type Minimum Design Design Design Minimum Notes
Template Type Type Air Flow Inlet En- Leav- Perfor-
Rate Wet tering ing mance
Ratio Bulb Water Water (gpm/hp)
Tem- Tem- Tem-
pera- pera- pera-
ture ture ture
(°F) (°F) (°F)
Pre-1980 From 90.1-2004
Table 6.8.1G
1980–2004 Open 38.2 From 90.1-2004
Propeller Table 6.8.1G
Cool- VFD 0.2 76 95 85
90.1-2004 or From 90.1-2004
ing
Axial Table 6.8.1G
Tower
90.1-2007 From 90.1-2007
Table 6.8.1G
90.1-2010 From 90.1-2010
Table 6.8.1 G
90.1-2013 From 90.1-2013
40.2 Table 6.8.1-7
90.1-2016 From 90.1-2016
Table 6.8.1-7
90.1-2019 From 90.1-2019
Table 6.8.1-7
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4.8.20 Ground-Source Heat Pumps
Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) are WSHP systems that use the ground as the heat sink for the condenser water
loop. The temperature of the ground is fairly constant throughout the year, which makes the ground an effective heat
sink for the refrigeration cycle. The following ComStock HVAC system type uses GSHPs: DOAS with water source
heat pumps with ground source heat pump.
The GSHP model in ComStock uses the “Plant Component Temperature Source” with energy management system
(EMS) controls to represent the temperature behavior of the ground condenser water loop. The EMS predicts the exit
temperature of the ground loop based on the inlet temperature of the loop, where the exit temperature will directly
impact the efficiency and capacity of the heat pump system. A warmer exit temperature will generally be beneficial
for heating, whereas a colder exit temperature will generally be beneficial for cooling. The exit temperature in
ComStock is predicted by a linear interpolation that assumes a +12°F delta temperature at the lowest expected inlet
loop temperature of 30°F (42°F loop exit temperature), and a -12°F delta temperature at the highest expected inlet
loop temperature of 90°F (78°F loop exit temperature), while ramping linearly in between. The relationship between
the inlet loop temperature and the outlet loop temperature is illustrated in Figure 109. Note that there is no change in
the loop temperature at 60°F, as this approach results in a constant ground temperature assumption of 60°F.
4.8.21 Refrigeration
In ComStock, refrigeration systems refer to the large refrigerated cases and walk-ins found in commercial kitchens
and grocery stores. Small plug-in refrigerators are included in plug and process loads, as described in Section 4.6.
Six building types in ComStock have refrigeration systems: primary schools, secondary schools, quick service
restaurants, full service restaurants, large hotels, and hospitals. Each of these buildings has a walk-in cooler and a
walk-in freezer in the kitchen. Medium-temperature walk-in coolers operate at 35.6°F with a source temperature of
25°F and have an off cycle defrost that occurs for 60 minutes twice per day with a drip-down period of 60 minutes
occurring twice per day. Low-temperature walk-in freezers operate at -9.4°F with a source temperature of -19°F and
an electric defrost that occurs for 45 minutes twice per day with a drip-down period of 45 minutes occurring twice
per day. Starting in the 90.1-2007 vintage, walk-ins are equipped with a strip curtain for the door. Walk-in coolers
and freezers do not account for the refrigeration requirement from restocking new food products (zero restocking
schedule) and assume lighting is always on. All walk-in refrigeration uses R-404a refrigerant with constant suction
temperature control. Walk-in sizes, fan power, and lighting power are shown in Table 80. Each refrigeration system
has a number of identical compressors sufficient to meet the rated cooling capacity. Compressor data by vintage is
shown in Table 81. Compressor curves are detailed in Figures 111, 112, and 113.
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4.9 Simulation Settings
4.9.1 EnergyPlus Simulation Settings
The EnergyPlus simulation settings are a crucial part of any run because they set the length of the run, the calendar
year, the number of time steps, and a number of other inputs. A list of all the simulation settings used in ComStock
and their descriptions is shown in Table 34.
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5 ComStock Outputs
ComStock creates a wide array of data that can be analyzed and aggregated to draw conclusions. While it is common
to look at how results vary by building type and climate zone, ComStock provides a wide range of outputs not
traditionally provided in large-scale analyses, with the hope of providing maximum utility.
Sections 2.6 and 2.7 describe how to access ComStock outputs. Additionally, the sample building energy models are
available at https://data.openei.org/ in the nrel-pds-building-stock data lake. See the README.md file for details.
• Electricity: This represents the electricity that is delivered to the building through the power grid and con-
sumed on-site. How this electricity is generated depends on the generation mix found on the power grid in the
region serving the building. This does not include electricity that is generated through a backup generator.
• Natural Gas: This represents the natural gas that is delivered to the building through the natural gas pipeline
system and consumed on-site.
• Propane: This represents the propane that is delivered to the building in tanks and consumed on-site.
• Fuel Oil: This represents the liquid fuel oil that is delivered to the building, stored in tanks, and consumed
on-site.
• Other Fuel: In some ComStock outputs, propane and fuel oil are combined and reported together as “other
fuel” due to reporting limitations in the simulation engine. Where this is the case, propane and fuel oil are not
reported separately to avoid double-counting.
• District Heating: This represents the hot water or steam that is delivered to the building through a district
heating piping system and consumed on-site. The quantity of energy consumed represents only the energy
extracted from the district heating system by the building; it does not represent the consumption of electricity
or natural gas at the district heating plant required to provide heat to the building. In order to capture the
energy consumption of the district heating plant, assumptions about distribution heat losses, pumping power,
and district heating plant equipment efficiency and controls may be made.
• District Cooling: This represents the chilled water that is delivered to the building through a district cooling
piping system and consumed on-site. The quantity of energy consumed represents only the energy extracted
from the district cooling system by the building; it does not represent the consumption of electricity or natural
gas at the district cooling plant required to provide chilled water to the building. In order to capture the energy
consumption of the district cooling plant, assumptions about distribution heat gains, pumping power, and
district cooling plant equipment efficiency and controls may be made.
ComStock provides modeled energy consumption for the following end uses for each applicable fuel:
• Cooling: This includes all energy consumed by primary cooling equipment such as chillers, direct expansion
air conditioners (includes condenser fan energy), and direct expansion heat pumps in cooling mode (includes
condenser fan energy). This also includes parasitic energy consumption of the equipment, such as pan heaters,
defrost energy, and any energy needed to overcome modeled pipe losses.
• Heating: This represents all energy consumed by primary heating equipment such as boilers, furnaces, natural
gas heating coils, electric resistance strip heating coils, and direct expansion heat pumps in heating mode
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(includes evaporator fan energy). This also includes parasitic energy consumption of the equipment, such as
pilot lights, standby losses, defrost energy, and any energy needed to overcome modeled pipe losses.
• Fans: This includes all energy consumed by supply fans, return fans, exhaust fans, and kitchen hoods in the
building. It excludes the condenser fan energy from direct expansion coils, which is captured in cooling and
heating, as described above.
• Pumps: This includes all energy consumed by pumps for the purpose of moving hot water for heating and
service water heating, chilled water for cooling, and condenser water for heat rejection.
• Heat Recovery: This includes the energy used to turn heat or enthalpy wheels, plus the increased fan energy
associated with the increased pressure rise caused by the heat recovery wheels.
• Heat Rejection: This includes the energy used to run cooling towers and fluid coolers to reject heat from the
condenser water loop to the air. As previously noted, condenser fans on direct expansion cooling and heating
coils are included in heating and cooling.
• Humidification: This includes all energy used to purposely increase humidity in the building. Most buildings
are assumed not to use humidification.
• Water Systems: This includes all energy consumed by the primary service hot water supply equipment, such
as boilers and water heaters. This also includes parasitic energy consumption of the equipment, such as pilot
lights, standby losses, and any energy needed to overcome modeled pipe losses.
• Refrigeration: This includes all energy used by large refrigeration cases and walk-ins such as those com-
monly found in grocery stores and large commercial kitchens. Plug-in refrigerators, such as those commonly
found in the checkout areas of retail stores, are included in interior equipment.
• Interior Lighting: This includes all energy used to light the interior of the building, including general light-
ing, task lighting, accent lighting, and exit lighting.
• Exterior Lighting: This includes all energy used to light the exterior of the building and the surrounding area,
including parking lot lighting, entryway illumination, and wall washing.
• Interior Equipment: This includes all energy used in the building that was not included in one of the other
categories. This covers miscellaneous electric loads such as computers and monitors, large equipment such
as elevators, and special-purpose equipment such as data center and IT-closet servers. This is a large and
coarse bin, largely because the variety of energy-consuming devices found in buildings is large and little
comprehensive data are available.
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Figure 43. Example ComStock Results
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5.2 Building Characteristics
In addition to energy consumption data, ComStock outputs include a variety of building input characteristics. Most
of these are either direct or indirect inputs to the building model generation workflow. Units for these characteristics
are described in the files that accompany the ComStock data sets. Names and descriptions for these characteristics
are included in Table 35.
Table 35. Building Input Characteristics
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Continued from previous page
Building Input Characteristic Description
in.energy_code_followed_during_original_building_- Specifies the date of construction of the modeled building,
construction which impacts the assumed energy code year of building
subsystems
in.heating_fuel Building primary HVAC heating fuel source
in.hvac_night_variability Specifies the nighttime HVAC operation used in the model,
which impacts fan and ventilation behavior during unoccu-
pied times
in.interior_lighting_generation The technology used for interior lighting in the building
in.number_stories Specifies the number of stories of the building
in.floor_area_category Specifies the rentable area range of the building
in.service_water_heating_fuel Building primary service water heating fuel source
in.nhgis_tract_gisjoin Census tract identifier in National Historical Geographic
Information System (NHGIS) format
in.nhgis_county_gisjoin County identified in NHGIS format
in.state_name Full name of state
in.state_abbreviation Postal abbreviation of state
in.census_division_name Census division name
in.census_region_name Census region name
in.weather_file_2018 Weather file used for the 2018 AMY simulations
in.weather_file_TMY3 Weather file used for the TMY3 simulations
in.climate_zone_building_america DOE Building America climate zone
in.climate_zone_ashrae_2004 ASHRAE Standard 169
in.iso_region Electric system independent system operator/regional
transmission organization (ISO/RTO) region
in.reeds_balancing_area Balancing area ID for the NREL Regional Energy Deploy-
ment System (ReEDS) modeling tool
in.resstock_county_id State abbreviation and county name
in.nhgis_puma_gisjoin Census PUMA identifier in NHGIS format
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_people_of_color Percentile for % people of color in building’s census tract.
See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environ-
mental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJSCREEN)
documentation for details
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_low_income Percentile for % low-income in building’s census tract. See
EPA EJSCREEN documentation for details
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_less_than_high_- Percentile for % less than high school in building’s census
school_education tract. See EPA EJSCREEN documentation for details
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_people_in_- Percentile for % of individuals in linguistic isolation in
linguistic_isolation building’s census tract. See EPA EJSCREEN documenta-
tion for details.
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_percent_people_- Percentile for % under age 5 in building’s census tract. See
under_5 EPA EJSCREEN documentation for details
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_people_over_64 Percentile for % over age 64 in building’s census tract. See
EPA EJSCREEN documentation for details
in.ejscreen_census_tract_percentile_for_demographic_- Percentile for demographic index in building’s census tract.
index See EPA EJSCREEN documentation for details
in.cejst_is_disadvantaged Whether the building’s census tract is identified as a dis-
advantaged community in the EPA Climate and Economic
Justice Screening Tool (CEJST). See CEJST documentation
for more details
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5.3 Building Summary Statistics
In addition to the building input characteristics, ComStock outputs include a variety of summary statistic informa-
tion about the building. These statistics captures building characteristics that result from the complex rules that are
applied to HVAC systems after sizing routines and are therefore not easy to discern from the building input char-
acteristics. Units for these outputs are described in the files that accompany the ComStock data sets. Names and
descriptions for these summary statistics are included in Table 82
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General Illumination Applications. Tech. rep. U.S. Department of Energy, Dec. 2019.
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Appendix A Tables
Table 45. Space Type Ratios
105
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Continued from previous page
Building Type Building Subtype Space Type Fraction of Floor Area
Warehouse warehouse_bulk20 Office 0.049
Warehouse warehouse_default Bulk 0.6628
Warehouse warehouse_default Fine 0.2882
Warehouse warehouse_default Office 0.049
Retail Standalone NA Back_Space 0.1656
Retail Standalone NA Entry 0.0052
Retail Standalone NA Point_of_Sale 0.0657
Retail Standalone NA Retail 0.7635
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_default Strip mall - type 1 0.25
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_default Strip mall - type 2 0.25
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_default Strip mall - type 3 0.5
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant0 Strip mall - type 1 0.25
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant0 Strip mall - type 2 0.25
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant0 Strip mall - type 3 0.5
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant10 Strip mall - type 1 0.225
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant10 Strip mall - type 2 0.225
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant10 Strip mall - type 3 0.45
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant10 Dining 0.07272
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant10 Kitchen 0.02728
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant20 Strip mall - type 1 0.2
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant20 Strip mall - type 2 0.2
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant20 Strip mall - type 3 0.4
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant20 Dining 0.14544
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant20 Kitchen 0.05456
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant30 Strip mall - type 1 0.175
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant30 Strip mall - type 2 0.175
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant30 Strip mall - type 3 0.35
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant30 Dining 0.2182
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant30 Kitchen 0.8184
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant40 Strip mall - type 1 0.15
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant40 Strip mall - type 2 0.15
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant40 Strip mall - type 3 0.3
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant40 Dining 0.29088
Retail Stripmall strip_mall_restaurant40 Kitchen 0.10912
Quick Service Restaurant NA Dining 0.5
Quick Service Restaurant NA Kitchen 0.5
Full Service Restaurant NA Dining 0.7272
Full Service Restaurant NA Kitchen 0.2728
Hospital NA Basement 0.1667
Hospital NA Corridor 0.1741
Hospital NA Dining 0.0311
Hospital NA ER_Exam 0.0099
Hospital NA ER_NurseStn 0.0551
Hospital NA ER_Trauma 0.0025
Hospital NA ER_Triage 0.005
Hospital NA ICU_NurseStn 0.0298
Hospital NA ICU_Open 0.0275
Hospital NA ICU_PatRm 0.0115
Hospital NA Kitchen 0.0414
Hospital NA Lab 0.0236
Hospital NA Lobby 0.0657
Hospital NA NurseStn 0.1723
Hospital NA Office 0.0286
Hospital NA OR 0.0273
Hospital NA PatCorridor 0
Hospital NA PatRoom 0.0845
Hospital NA PhysTherapy 0.0217
Hospital NA Radiology 0.0217
Outpatient NA Anesthesia 0.0026
Outpatient NA BioHazard 0.0014
Outpatient NA Cafe 0.0103
Outpatient NA CleanWork 0.0071
Outpatient NA Conference 0.0082
Outpatient NA DressingRoom 0.0021
Outpatient NA Elec/MechRoom 0.0109
Outpatient NA ElevatorPumpRoom 0.0022
Outpatient NA Exam 0.1029
Outpatient NA Hall 0.1924
Outpatient NA IT_Room 0.0027
Outpatient NA Janitor 0.0672
Outpatient NA Lobby 0.0152
Outpatient NA LockerRoom 0.019
Outpatient NA Lounge 0.0293
Outpatient NA MedGas 0.0014
Outpatient NA MRI 0.0107
Outpatient NA MRI_Control 0.0041
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Continued from previous page
Building Type Building Subtype Space Type Fraction of Floor Area
Outpatient NA NurseStation 0.0189
Outpatient NA Office 0.1828
Outpatient NA OR 0.0346
Outpatient NA PACU 0.0232
Outpatient NA PhysicalTherapy 0.0462
Outpatient NA PreOp 0.0129
Outpatient NA ProcedureRoom 0.007
Outpatient NA Reception 0.0365
Outpatient NA Soil Work 0.0088
Outpatient NA Stair 0.0146
Outpatient NA Toilet 0.0193
Outpatient NA Undeveloped 0.0835
Outpatient NA Xray 0.022
DEER Education Primary NA Classroom 0.53
School
DEER Education Primary NA CorridorStairway 0.1
School
DEER Education Primary NA Dining 0.15
School
DEER Education Primary NA Gymnasium 0.15
School
DEER Education Primary NA Kitchen 0.07
School
DEER Education Secondary NA Classroom 0.488
School
DEER Education Secondary NA CompRoomClassRm 0.021
School
DEER Education Secondary NA CorridorStairway 0.1
School
DEER Education Secondary NA Dining 0.15
School
DEER Education Secondary NA Gymnasium 0.15
School
DEER Education Secondary NA Kitchen 0.07
School
DEER Education Secondary NA OfficeGeneral 0.021
School
DEER Hospital NA DEER HospitalSurgOutptLab 0.2317
DEER Hospital NA Dining 0.0172
DEER Hospital NA Kitchen 0.0075
DEER Hospital NA OfficeGeneral 0.3636
DEER Hospital NA PatientRoom 0.38
DEER Hotel NA Dining 0.004
DEER Hotel NA BarCasino 0.005
DEER Hotel NA HotelLobby 0.0411
DEER Hotel NA OfficeGeneral 0.0205
DEER Hotel NA GuestRmCorrid 0.1011
DEER Hotel NA Laundry 0.0205
DEER Hotel NA GuestRmOcc 0.64224
DEER Hotel NA GuestRmUnOcc 0.16056
DEER Hotel NA Kitchen 0.005
DEER Motel NA OfficeGeneral 0.02
DEER Motel NA GuestRmCorrid 0.649
DEER Motel NA Laundry 0.016
DEER Motel NA GuestRmOcc 0.25208
DEER Motel NA GuestRmUnOcc 0.06302
DEER Office Large NA LobbyWaiting 0.0412
DEER Office Large NA OfficeSmall 0.3704
DEER Office Large NA OfficeOpen 0.5296
DEER Office Large NA MechElecRoom 0.0588
DEER Office Small NA Hall 0.3141
DEER Office Small NA OfficeSmall 0.6859
DEER Restaurant Fast Food NA Dining 0.3997
DEER Restaurant Fast Food NA Kitchen 0.4
DEER Restaurant Fast Food NA LobbyWaiting 0.1501
DEER Restaurant Fast Food NA Restroom 0.0501
DEER Restaurant Sit Down NA Restroom 0.0357
DEER Restaurant Sit Down NA Dining 0.5353
DEER Restaurant Sit Down NA LobbyWaiting 0.1429
DEER Restaurant Sit Down NA Kitchen 0.2861
DEER Retail Three Story NA RetailSales 1
DEER Retail Large NA OfficeGeneral 0.0359
DEER Retail Large NA Work 0.04
DEER Retail Large NA StockRoom 0.091
DEER Retail Large NA RetailSales 0.8219
DEER Retail Large NA Kitchen 0.0113
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Continued from previous page
Building Type Building Subtype Space Type Fraction of Floor Area
DEER Retail Small NA RetailSales 0.8
DEER Retail Small NA StockRoom 0.2
DEER Storage Conditioned NA WarehouseCond 1
DEER Storage Unconditioned NA WarehouseUnCond 1
108
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Table 36. Food Service (Full Service Restaurant and Quick Service Restaurant) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
109
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Table 37. Healthcare (Hospital and Outpatient) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
110
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Table 38. Hotel (Large Hotel and Small Hotel) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
111
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Table 39. Office (Small Office, Medium Office, and Large Office) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
112
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Table 40. School (Primary School and Secondary School) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
Table 41. Retail (Retail and Strip Mall) Occupant Density Values by Space Type
113
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Table 42. Warehouse Occupant Density Values by Space Type
Schedule Name Outside CA Activity Level (W/person) Inside CA Activity Level (W/person)
Hospital 120 132–220
Large Hotel 120 117–220
Small Hotel 132 117–220
Outpatient 120 117–220
Quick Service Restaurant 120 132–220
Full Service Restaurant 120 132–220
Retail 120 132–220
Primary School 120 117–331
Secondary School 120 117–331
Warehouse 131.85 132–220
Small Office 120 117–220
Medium Office 120 117–220
Large Office 120 117–220
114
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Table 46. Mapping of Wall Construction Types from Database to ComStock
115
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Table 47. Input Distribution of Wall Construction Types by Climate Zone and Number of Stories
116
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Table 49. Wall Assembly Thermal Performance (Inside California)
117
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Table 50. Summary of Average Wall R-Value by ASHRAE Climate Zone and Wall Type
118
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Table 51. Window Property Data Sources
Source Data Samples Regions Window Panes Glazing Frame/ Low-E Window U- Gas
Col- Area Type Ther- Coat- Retrofit/ Vin- Factor/ Fill
lection mal ing New tage SHGC
Year Break
Guidehouse 2020 800 National P P P P P P P P P
Survey
NEEA CBSA 2014, 1,996 WA, OR, P P P P P P P P
2018 MT, ID
DOE Code 2016– 104 FL, IA, P P P P P P
Study 2019 IL, NE
CAEUS 2006 5,862 California P P P P
EIA CBECS 2012 6,721 National P P P
EIA RECS 2015 858 National P P P P
(Multi-
family)
Programs 2020 30 TX, CO, P P P P P
WA
Other 2019 6 WA, TN P P P P P P
AAMA 2017 Summary National P P P P P P
Level (Sales)
Manufacturer 2019 3,000+ National P P P P P
Data (Sales)
Guidehouse 2020 Summary National
Market Size Level
Estimates
P = Present in Data Source
Number Glazing Type Frame Material Low-E Frame WINDOW U- SHGC VLT
of Panes Coat- ID ID Factor
ing IP
(Btu/h-
ft2 -F)
Single Clear Aluminum No 5 2000 1.178 0.744 0.754
Single Tinted/Reflective Aluminum No 5 2001 1.178 0.579 0.455
Single Clear Wood No 9 2002 0.910 0.683 0.723
Single Tinted/Reflective Wood No 9 2003 0.910 0.525 0.436
Double Clear Aluminum No 5 2004 0.746 0.646 0.671
Double Tinted/Reflective Aluminum No 5 2005 0.749 0.484 0.411
Double Clear Aluminum Yes 5 2006 0.559 0.386 0.591
Double Clear Aluminum With Thermal Break Yes 7 2007 0.499 0.378 0.591
Double Tinted/Reflective Aluminum Yes 5 2008 0.557 0.274 0.359
Double Tinted/Reflective Aluminum With Thermal Break Yes 7 2009 0.496 0.266 0.359
Triple Clear Aluminum With Thermal Break Yes 8 2010 0.300 0.328 0.527
Triple Tinted/Reflective Aluminum With Thermal Break Yes 8 2011 0.299 0.224 0.320
119
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Table 54. Roof Assembly Thermal Performance (Inside California)
120
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Table 56. Ground Contact Floor Thermal Performance
121
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Table 57. Interior Lighting Technologies
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Lighting Generation System Fixture Lamp Fixture Fixture Source Lamp Luminaire Lighting Return Radiant Visible
Technology Type Type Type Min. Max. Efficacy Lumen Dirt Loss Air Fraction Fraction
Height Height (lumen- Depreci- Depreci- Factor Fraction
(ft) (ft) s/Watt) ation ation
T12 gen1_t12_- general lamp fluorescent 0 20 74 0.93 0.89 0.8277 0 0.31 0.2
incandescent
HID High Bay gen1_t12_- general luminaire HID 20 1,000 43 0.88 0.74 0.6512 0 0.465 0.2
Mercury Vapor incandescent
Incandescent gen1_t12_- supplemental luminaire incandescent 0 1,000 8.7 0.97 0.83 0.8051 0 0.125 0.2
Decorative incandescent
Incandescent gen1_t12_- task lamp incandescent 0 1,000 10.3 0.97 0.81 0.7857 0 0.125 0.2
A-Shape incandescent
Incandescent gen1_t12_- wall wash luminaire incandescent 0 1,000 8.7 0.97 0.81 0.7857 0 0.125 0.2
Decorative incandescent
T8 gen2_t8_- general lamp fluorescent 0 20 94.1 0.93 0.89 0.8277 0 0.31 0.2
halogen
HID High Bay gen2_t8_- general luminaire HID 20 1,000 90.2 0.88 0.74 0.6512 0 0.465 0.2
Metal Halide halogen
Halogen Decora- gen2_t8_- supplemental luminaire halogen 0 1,000 15 0.97 0.83 0.8051 0 0.125 0.2
tive halogen
Halogen A-Shape gen2_t8_- task lamp halogen 0 1,000 17.5 0.97 0.81 0.7857 0 0.125 0.2
halogen
Halogen Decora- gen2_t8_- wall wash luminaire halogen 0 1,000 15 0.97 0.81 0.7857 0 0.125 0.2
tive halogen
T5 gen3_t5_cfl general lamp fluorescent 0 20 103.5 0.93 0.89 0.8277 0 0.31 0.2
HID High Bay gen3_t5_cfl general luminaire HID 20 1,000 90.2 0.88 0.74 0.6512 0 0.465 0.2
122
Metal Halide
Compact gen3_t5_cfl supplemental luminaire CFL 0 1,000 70.1 0.85 0.83 0.7055 0 0.35 0.2
Fluorescent Pin
Compact gen3_t5_cfl task lamp CFL 0 1,000 62.4 0.85 0.81 0.6885 0 0.35 0.2
Fluorescent Screw
Compact gen3_t5_cfl wall wash luminaire CFL 0 1,000 70.1 0.85 0.81 0.6885 0 0.35 0.2
Fluorescent Pin
LED Lamp Linear gen4_led general lamp LED 0 20 104 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.365 0.2
LED Luminaire gen4_led general luminaire LED 0 20 96 0.85 0.85 0.7225 0 0.365 0.2
LED High Bay gen4_led general luminaire LED 20 1,000 118 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.465 0.2
Luminaire
LED Decorative gen4_led supplemental luminaire LED 0 1,000 87 0.85 0.9 0.765 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp gen4_led task lamp LED 0 1,000 93 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.165 0.2
General Purpose
LED Directional gen4_led wall wash luminaire LED 0 1,000 51 0.85 0.84 0.714 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp Linear gen5_led general lamp LED 0 20 116 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.365 0.2
LED Luminaire gen5_led general luminaire LED 0 20 109 0.85 0.85 0.7225 0 0.365 0.2
LED High Bay gen5_led general luminaire LED 20 1,000 132 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.465 0.2
Luminaire
LED Decorative gen5_led supplemental luminaire LED 0 1,000 97 0.85 0.9 0.765 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp gen5_led task lamp LED 0 1,000 105 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.165 0.2
General Purpose
LED Directional gen5_led wall wash luminaire LED 0 1,000 57 0.85 0.84 0.714 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp Linear gen6_led general lamp LED 0 20 132 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.365 0.2
LED Luminaire gen6_led general luminaire LED 0 20 126 0.85 0.85 0.7225 0 0.365 0.2
LED High Bay gen6_led general luminaire LED 20 1,000 152 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.465 0.2
Luminaire
LED Decorative gen6_led supplemental luminaire LED 0 1,000 111 0.85 0.9 0.765 0 0.165 0.2
Continued from previous page
Lighting Generation System Fixture Lamp Fixture Fixture Source Lamp Luminaire Lighting Return Radiant Visible
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Technology Type Type Type Min. Max. Efficacy Lumen Dirt Loss Air Fraction Fraction
Height Height (lumen- Depreci- Depreci- Factor Fraction
(ft) (ft) s/Watt) ation ation
LED Lamp gen6_led task lamp LED 0 1,000 122 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.165 0.2
General Purpose
LED Directional gen6_led wall wash luminaire LED 0 1,000 64 0.85 0.84 0.714 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp Linear gen7_led general lamp LED 0 20 145 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.365 0.2
LED Luminaire gen7_led general luminaire LED 0 20 140 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.365 0.2
LED High Bay gen7_led general luminaire LED 20 1,000 167 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.465 0.2
Luminaire
LED Decorative gen7_led supplemental luminaire LED 0 1,000 123 0.85 0.9 0.765 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp gen7_led task lamp LED 0 1,000 136 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.165 0.2
General Purpose
LED Directional gen7_led wall wash luminaire LED 0 1,000 71 0.85 0.84 0.714 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp Linear gen8_led general lamp LED 0 20 157 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.365 0.2
LED Luminaire gen8_led general luminaire LED 0 20 152 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.365 0.2
LED High Bay gen8_led general luminaire LED 20 1,000 181 0.85 0.75 0.6375 0 0.465 0.2
Luminaire
LED Decorative gen8_led supplemental luminaire LED 0 1,000 133 0.85 0.9 0.765 0 0.165 0.2
LED Lamp gen8_led task lamp LED 0 1,000 147 0.85 0.87 0.7395 0 0.165 0.2
General Purpose
LED Directional gen8_led wall wash luminaire LED 0 1,000 76 0.85 0.84 0.714 0 0.165 0.2
Lighting loss factor reference: PNNL 90.1 lighting subcommittee model
Source efficacy reference, gen1–gen3: DOE 2015 LMC Table C3
Source efficacy reference, gen4–gen8: DOE 2019 SSL Table D4
Radiant fraction references: ASHRAE RP 1282 and ASHRAE RP 1681
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[Intentionally Blank]
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Table 58. Interior Lighting Space Types
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90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
(lumens/ft2 )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Atrium NA (typical all Atrium - first three atrium_first_- 16.5 0.96 4 1 0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs) floors three_floors
Atrium NA (typical all Atrium - each atrium_each_- 16.5 0.96 2 1 0.92 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs) additional floor additional_floor
Atrium NA (typical all 20 ft in height atrium_less_than_- 16.5 0.96 4 1 0.82 0 0 0 0 0 0.58
bldgs) 20ft
Atrium NA (typical all 20 ft and 40 ft in atrium_20ft_to_- 16.5 0.96 8 1 0.67 0 0 0 0 0 0.39
bldgs) height 40ft
Atrium NA (typical all 40 ft in height atrium_greater_- 19.5 0.96 10 1 0.62 0 0 0 0 0 0.34
bldgs) than_40ft
Audience Seating Convention Center Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 2 1 0.97 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area Area area_convention_-
center
Audience Seating Fitness Center Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 2 1 0.92 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area Area area_fitness_center
Audience Seating Auditorium Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 4 0.6 0.91 0 0 0.1 0.85 0.3 0.83
Area Area area_auditorium_-
125
auditorium
Audience Seating Auditorium Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 4 0.9 0.91 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.73 changed wall
Area Area area_education_- wash fraction
auditorium from 0.5 to
0.1, general
fraction from
0.5 to 0.9
Audience Seating Gymnasium Audience audience_seating_- 11 0.96 4 1 0.59 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area Seating/Permanent area_gymnasium
Seating
Audience Seating Motion Picture Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 2 1 0.91 0 0 0 0.11 0 0
Area Theatre Area area_motion_-
theatre
Audience Seating Performing Arts Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 36.3 0.96 6 0.79 0.69 0 0 0 0 0.21 0.58
Area Theatre Area area_performing_-
theatre
Audience Seating Sports Arena Audience/Seating audience_seating_- 11 0.96 2 0.5 0.46 0.5 0.97 0 0 0 0
Area Area area_sports_arena
Audience Seating NA (typical all All other audience audience_seating_- 11 0.96 2 1 1.02 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area bldgs) seating areas area_all_others
Banking Activity WHOLE Bank Customer whole_building_- 11 0.96 4 0.69 0.71 0 0 0 0 0.31 0.73
Area BULDING Area bank_activity_area
ANALYSIS ONLY
Banking Activity Office Banking Activity banking_activity_- 33 0.96 4 0.86 0.71 0 0 0 0 0.14 0.73
Area Area area_office
Workshop Workshop Workshop classroom_- 55 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0.92 0 0 0 0
workshop
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Classroom/Lecture/ NA (typical all Classroom/Lecture/ classroom 43.8 0.96 2 1 0.8 0 0.92 0 0 0 0.83 changed
Training bldgs) Training general
fraction to 1.0
Computer Room NA (typical all Computer Room computer_room 55 0.96 2 1 0.92 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
Conference/Meeting/ NA (typical all Conference conference_- 33 0.96 4 0.85 0.59 0.08 0.89 0 0 0.075 0.69 changed
Multipurpose bldgs) Meeting/ meeting_- general
Room Multipurpose multipurpose fraction to
0.85, task and
wall wash to
0.075
Conference/Meeting/ WHOLE Hotel/Conference whole_building_- 33 0.96 2 0.44 0.45 0.44 0.92 0 0 0.11 0.87
Multipurpose BULDING Center - Confer- conference_center
Room ANALYSIS ONLY ence/Meeting
Control Room Manufacturing Equipment Room control_room_- 22 0.96 4 0.77 0.49 0.23 0.38 0 0 0 0
Facility manufacturing_-
facility
Copy/Print Room NA (typical all Copy/Print Room copy_print_room 33 0.96 4 1 0.74 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
126
Corridor NA (typical all Corridor/Transition corridor_all_other 16.5 0.96 8 1 0.64 0 0 0 0 0 0.6 changed
bldgs) general
fraction to 1.0
Corridor Manufacturing Corridor/Transition corridor_- 15.4 0.96 6 1 0.48 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility manufacturing_-
facility
Courtroom Court House Courtroom courtroom 44 0.96 4 0.4 0.51 0.5 0.84 0 0 0.1 0.83
Dining Areas NA (typical all Dining Area dining_areas_all_- 28.6 0.96 2 0.85 0.79 0.05 0.92 0 0 0.1 0.83 changed
bldgs) other general
fraction to
0.85, task to
0.05, wall
wash to 0.1
Dining Areas Cafeteria or fast Dining Area dining_areas_- 22 0.96 2 0.85 0.79 0.05 0.92 0 0 0.1 0.83 changed
food cafeteria_or_fast_- general
food fraction to
0.85, task to
0.05, wall
wash to 0.1
Dining Areas Civil Services Dining Area dining_areas_- 16.5 0.96 4 1 0.71 0 0 0 0 0 0
civil_services
Dining Areas Transportation Dining Area dining_areas_- 16.5 0.96 4 0.63 0.85 0.38 0.34 0 0 0 0
transportation
Dining Areas Hotel Dining Area dining_areas_hotel 11 0.96 2 0.33 0.45 0.33 0.97 0 0 0.33 0.23
Dining Areas Motel Dining Area dining_areas_- 11 0.96 2 0.77 0.97 0.23 0.9 0 0 0 0
motel
Dining Areas Lounge/Leisure Dining Area dining_areas_- 11 0.96 2 0.59 1 0.25 0.45 0.16 0.9 0 0
Dining lounge_dining
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
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or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Dining Areas Family Dining Dining Area dining_areas_- 22 0.96 2 0.70 0.92 0.09 0.45 0 0 0.22 0.9
family_dining
Electrical/Mechanical NA (typical all Electrical/Mechanical electrical_- 18.7 0.96 4 0.9 0.49 0.1 0.38 0 0 0 0 changed
bldgs) mechanical general
fraction to 0.9,
task fraction to
0.1
Emergency Police/Fire Station Fire Station emergency vehicle 33 0.96 2 1 0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0
Vehicle Garage Engine room garage_fire_-
station_engine
Emergency NA (typical all Emergency emergency vehicle 33 0.96 2 1 0.79 0 0 0 0 0 0
Vehicle Garage bldgs) Vehicle Garage garage
Food Preparartion NA (typical all Food Preparation food_preparation 50 0.96 4 0.82 0.65 0.18 0.65 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
Guest Room NA (typical all Guest Room guest_room 16.5 0.96 4 0 0.64 1 0.83 0 0 0 0 adjusted
bldgs) general
fraction
to force
A19-style use
127
Laboratory NA (All buildings) Medical/Industrial laboratory_- 55 0.96 4 0.79 0.59 0.21 0.77 0 0 0 0.64
Research medical_-
Laboratory industrial_research
Laboratory NA (All buildings) Education laboratory_- 50 0.96 4 0.84 0.59 0.02 0.48 0.04 0.73 0.10 0.64
Laboratory education
Laundry/Washing WHOLE Laundry-Ironing whole_building_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.81 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area BULDING Sorting laundry
ANALYSIS ONLY
Laundry/Washing NA (typical all Laundry/Washing laundry_washing_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.81 0 0 0 0 0 0
Area bldgs) Area area
Loading Dock, NA (typical all Loading Dock, loading_dock_- 33 0.96 4 1 0.46 0 0 0 0 0 0
Interior bldgs) Interior interior
Lobby NA (typical all Lobby lobby_all_other 11 0.96 2 0.69 0.45 0.14 0.92 0 0 0.17 0.75
bldgs)
Lobby WHOLE Elevator Lobbies whole_building_- 16.5 0.96 4 0.62 0.77 0.12 0.76 0 0 0.26 0.56
BULDING elevator_lobby
ANALYSIS ONLY
Lobby Hotel Lobby lobby_hotel 16.5 0.96 3 0.67 0.93 0 0 0 0.96 0.33 0.91
Lobby Performing Arts Lobby lobby_perform- 27.5 0.96 7 0.86 0.72 0 0 0.14 0.29 0 0.76
theatre ing_theatre
Lobby Auditorium Lobby lobby_auditorium 25.3 0.96 2 0.43 0.97 0.13 0.45 0 0 0.43 0.75
Lobby Motion Picture Lobby lobby_motion_- 11 0.96 2 1 0.92 0 0 0 0 0 0
Theatre picture_theatre
Lobby Religious Lobby lobby_religious_- 16.5 0.96 4 0.67 0.77 0 0 0 0 0.33 0.76
Buildings buildings
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Lobby Post Office Lobby lobby_post_office 22 0.96 4 1 0.44 0 0 0 0 0 0.56 changed
general
fraction to 1
and Suppl.
fraction to 0
Locker Room Gymnasium/Fitness Locker Room locker_room 22 0.96 4 0.88 0.65 0.125 0.77 0 0 0 0
Center
Lounge/Breakroom NA (typical all Mother’s or lounge_mother_- 16.5 0.96 6 0.6 0.39 0.4 0.82 0 0 0 0
bldgs) Wellness Room wellness
Lounge/Breakroom NA (typical all Lounge/Recreation lounge_- 22 0.96 2 0.9 0.92 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.82 changed
bldgs) breakroom_all_- general
other fraction to 0.9,
wall wash to
0.1
Lounge/Breakroom Hotel Reception/Waiting lounge_- 16.5 0.96 2 0.41 1 0 0 0.29 0.4 0.29 0.88
breakroom_hotel
Lounge/Breakroom Motel Reception/Waiting lounge_- 16.5 0.96 2 0.41 0.92 0 0 0.29 0.4 0.29 0.88
breakroom_motel
128
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Security Screening Security Screening General Security security_screening 30 0.96 4 1 0.9 0 0 0 0 0 0
Screening
Stairway/Stairwell NA (typical all Stairway stairway 16.5 0.96 8 0.9 0.42 0.05 0.27 0 0 0.05 0 changed
bldgs) general
fraction to 0.9,
task to 0.05,
wall wash to
0.05
Stairway/Stairwell Assisted Living Stairways stairway_- 100 0.96 8 0.67 0.36 0.33 0.27 0 0 0 0
assisted_living
Stairway/Stairwell NA (typical all Stairs - Inactive stairway_inactive 16.5 0.96 8 1 0.42 0 0.27 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
Stairway/Stairwell NA (typical all Stairs - Inactive stairway_incative2 11 0.96 8 0.5 0.36 0.5 0.27 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
Stairway/Stairwell NA (typical all Stairwell stairwell 11 0.96 8 0.9 0.36 0.05 0.27 0 0 0.05 0 changed
bldgs) general
fraction to 0.9,
task to 0.05,
wall wash to
129
0.05
Storage WHOLE Office Common whole_building_- 5.5 0.96 4 1 0.65 0 0 0 0 0 0
BULDING Activity Areas - storage
ANALYSIS ONLY Inactive Storage
Storage NA (typical all Inactive storage storage_inactive 5.5 0.96 4 1 0.65 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs)
Storage NA (typical all Active storage (50 storage_active_- 11 0.96 8 1 0.42 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs) ft2) less_than_50ft2
Storage NA (typical all Active storage (50 storage_active_- 11 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs) ft2 and 1000 ft2) 50ft2_to_1000ft2
Storage NA (typical all All other storage storage_all_other 11 0.96 4 1 0.65 0 0 0 0 0 0
bldgs) rooms
Vehicular Automotive Garage Ser- vehicular_- 33 0.96 2 0.83 0.7 0.17 0.56 0 0 0 0
Maintenance Area Facility vice/Repair maintenance_-
area_automotive_-
facility
Vehicular NA (typical all Vehicular vehicular_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.68 0 0 0 0 0 0
Maintenance Area bldgs) Maintenance Area maintenance_area
Conference/Meeting/ NA (typical all Conference video_conference 33 0.96 4 0.67 0.59 0.17 0.89 0 0 0.17 0.69 reduced wall
Multipurpose bldgs) Meeting/ wash from 0.5
Room Multipurpose to 0.17 to sum
to 1
Workshop Workshop Workshop workshop 55 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0 0 0 0 0
Casino - Gaming Casino Slot Machine/Dig- casino_gaming_- 22 0.96 3 0.8 0.91 0.1 0.34 0.1 0.42 0 0
Area ital Gaming area_slot_machine
Area
Casino - Gaming Casino Table Games Area casino_gaming_- 44 0.96 3 0.8 0.91 0.1 0.34 0.1 0.42 0 0
Area area_table_games
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Casino - Gaming Casino High Limit Game casino_gaming 55 0.96 2 0.7 0.98 0.2 0.4 0.1 0.5 0 0
Area Area area_high_limit
Casino - Gaming Casino Betting/Sports casino_gaming_- 33 0.96 3 0.8 0.91 0.1 0.34 0.1 0.42 0 0
Area Book/Keno/Bingo area_betting
Area
Convention Center Convention Center Exhibit space convention_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.81 0 0 0 0 0 0
center_exhibit_-
space
Correctional Court House Audience/Seating correctional_- 11 0.96 4 0.67 0.84 0 0 0 0 0.33 0.49
Facilities Area facilities_-
courthouse_-
seating_area
Correctional Police/Fire Audience/Seating correctional_- 11 0.96 2 0.67 0.92 0 0 0 0 0.33 0.62
Facilities Stations Area facilities_police_-
fire_stations_-
seating_area
Correctional Penitentiary Audience/Seating correctional_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.91 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facilities Area facilities_-
penitentiary_-
130
seating_area
Correctional Penitentiary Classroom/Lecture/ correctional_- 43.8 0.96 2 1 0.82 0 0 0 0 0 0 changed
Facilities Training facilities_- general
penitentiary_- fraction to 1
classroom and Suppl.
fraction to 0
Correctional Penitentiary Confinement Cells correctional_- 27.5 0.96 4 0.91 0.73 0.09 0.68 0 0 0 0
Facilities facilities_-
penitentiary_-
confinement_cells
Correctional Court House Confinement Cells correctional_- 22 0.96 4 0.91 0.73 0.09 0.68 0 0 0 0
Facilities facilities_-
court_house_-
confinement_cells
Correctional Court House Judges Chambers correctional_- 33 0.96 6 0.86 0.57 0 0 0 0 0.14 0.72
Facilities facilities_court_-
house_judges_-
chambers
Correctional Penitentiary Dining Area correctional_- 16.5 0.96 4 1 0.73 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facilities facilities_-
penitentiary_-
dining_area
Dormitory - Living WHOLE Dormitory Study whole_building_- 33 0.96 4 0.88 0.74 0 0 0 0 0.12 0.73
Quarters BULDING Hall dormitory_study_-
ANALYSIS ONLY hall
Dormitory - Living WHOLE Dormitory whole_building_- 16.5 0.96 6 0.85 0.52 0.15 0.38 0 0.33 0 0
Quarters BULDING Bedroom dormitory_-
ANALYSIS ONLY bedroom
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Dormitory - Living Dormitory Living quarters dormitory_living_- 16.5 0.96 6 0.85 0.52 0.15 0.38 0 0.33 0 0
Quarters quarters
Dormitory - Living Hotel Living quarters dormitory_hotel_- 16.5 0.96 4 0.77 0.44 0.23 0.73 0 0 0 0
Quarters living_quarters
Dormitory - Living Motel Living quarters dormitory_motel_- 16.5 0.96 4 0.77 0.44 0.23 0.73 0 0 0 0
Quarters living_quarters
Facility for the Assisted Living Chapel facility_for_- 35 0.96 2 0.86 0.92 0 0 0 0 0.14 0.9
Visually Impaired the_visually_-
impaired_chapel
Facility for the Assisted Living Corridor/Transition facility_for_- 30 0.96 8 0.90 0.31 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.56
Visually Impaired the_visually_-
impaired_corridor
Dining Areas Assisted Living Dining Area facility_for_- 35 0.96 4 0.32 0.85 0.54 0.51 0.00 0.33 0.14 0.73 changed Suppl.
the_visually_- coefficient to
impaired_dining_- 0.33
areas
Dining Areas Assisted Living Dining Area facility_for_- 40 0.96 4 0.40 0.48 0.5 0.51 0 0 0.1 0.73
the_visually_-
131
impaired_dining_-
areas_senior
Facility for the Visually Impaired Lobby facility_for_- 50 0.96 4 0.62 0.49 0.15 0.85 0.11 0.33 0.12 0.56 changed Suppl.
Visually Impaired Facility the_visually_- coefficient to
impaired_lobby 0.33
Facility for the Assisted living Restrooms facility_for_- 35 0.96 6 0.82 0.46 0 0.69 0.18 0.33 0 0.57 changed Suppl.
Visually Impaired the_visually_- coefficient to
impaired_- 0.33
restrooms
Fire Station - Police/Fire Station Sleeping Quarters police_fire_- 5.5 0.96 4 0.5 0.65 0.5 0.43 0 0 0 0
Sleeping Quarters station_sleeping_-
quarters
Gymnasium/Fitness Fitness Center Exercise Area fitness_center_- 44 0.96 2 1 0.59 0 0 0 0 0 0
Center exercise_area
Gymnasium/Fitness Gymnasium Fitness Area fitness_center_- 44 0.96 2 1 0.59 0 0 0 0 0 0
Center fitness_area
Gymnasium/Fitness Gymnasium Playing Area fitness_center_- 55 0.96 2 1 0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0
Center playing_area
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Control Room healthcare_- 35 0.96 6 1 0.56 0 0 0 0 0 0
(MRI/CT/Radiolo- imaging_-
gy/PET) equipment_-
control_room
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Exam/Treatment healthcare_exam 55 0.96 6 1 0.58 0 0 0 0 0 0
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Emergency healthcare_- 82.5 0.96 4 0.9 0.7 0.1 374 0 0 0 0 changed
emergency_room general
fraction to 0.9,
task fraction to
0.1
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Public Staff healthcare_- 22 0.96 4 0.9 0.77 0 0.77 0 0 0.1 0.64 changed
Lounge lounge_breakroom general
fraction to 0.9,
task fraction to
0, wall wash to
0.1
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Hospital Corridor healthcare_- 33 0.96 4 0.9 0.71 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.83 changed
corridor general
fraction to 0.9,
wall wash to
0.1
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Radiology/Imaging healthcare_- 33 0.96 4 1 0.74 0 0.73 0 0 0 0
imaging
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Hospital/Medical healthcare_- 33 0.96 4 1 0.74 0 0 0 0 0 0
supplies medical_supplies
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Hospital - Nursery healthcare_nursery 33 0.96 4 1 0.59 0 0.84 0 0 0 0.73
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Laundry-Washing heatlhcare_laundry 33 0.96 1 1 0.81 0 0 0 0 0 0
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Nurse station healthcare_nurse_- 33 0.96 4 0.8 0.59 0.2 0.58 0 0 0 0.73 changed
132
station general
fraction to 0.8,
task fraction to
0.2
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Physical therapy healthcare_- 44 0.96 4 0.8 0.59 0.2 0.59 0 0 0 0 changed
physical_therapy general
fraction to 0.8,
task fraction to
0.2
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Patient Room healthcare_- 33 0.96 4 0.46 0.73 0.54 0.7 0 0 0 0 changed
patient_room general
fraction from
0.435 to 0.457
and Suppl.
fraction to 0
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Operating Room healthcare_- 110 0.96 4 1 0.71 0 0 0 0 0 0
operating_room
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Recovery healthcare_- 55 0.96 4 0.89 0.73 0 0 0 0 0.11 0.73
recovery
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Active storage healthcare_- 33 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0 0 0 0 0
pharmacy_storage
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Active storage healthcare_storage 22 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0 0 0 0 0
Healthcare Facility Hospital/Healthcare Telehealth healthcare_- 33 0.96 6 1 0.4 0 0 0 0 0 0.57 reduced wall
telehealth wash to zero to
sum to 1
Library Library Library-Audio library_library_- 11 0.96 2 0.91 0.79 0.09 0.65 0 0 0 0
Visual audio_visual
Library Library Stacks library_stacks 33 0.96 2 0.38 0.68 0.62 0.82 0 0 0 0.66
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Library Library Card File library_card_file 33 0.96 2 0.83 0.9 0 0 0 0 0.17 0.66
Cataloguing
Library Library Reading Area library_reading_- 55 0.96 2 0.68 0.76 0.32 0.97 0 0 0 0
area
Manufacturing Manufacturing Detailed manufac- manufacturing_- 55 0.96 1 1 0.94 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility Facility turing area facility_detailed
Manufacturing Manufacturing Equipment Room manufacturing_- 22 0.96 4 0.77 0.49 0.23 0.38 0 0 0 0
Facility Facility facility_-
equipment_room
Manufacturing Manufacturing General Low Bay manufacturing_- 55 0.96 2 1 0.79 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility Facility facility_low_bay
Manufacturing Manufacturing General High Bay manufacturing_- 55 0.96 5 1 0.54 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility Facility facility_high_bay
Manufacturing Manufacturing Extra High Bay manufacturing_- 55 0.96 7 1 0.47 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility Facility facility_extra_-
high_bay
Museum Museum Active Storage museum_active_- 22 0.96 4 1 0.61 0 0 0 0 0 0
storage
133
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Retail Facilities WHOLE Massage whole_building_- 33 0.96 6 0.73 0.89 0.27 0.82 0 0 0 0
BULDING massage
ANALYSIS ONLY
Retail Facilities Retail Personal Services retail_personal_- 25.3 0.96 4 0.9 0.59 0.06 0.85 0 0 0.04 0.56 changed
Sales Area services_sales_- general
area fraction to 0.9,
task fraction
to 0.06, wall
wash fraction
to 0.04
Retail Facilities Retail Mass Merchan- retail_mass_- 45.1 0.96 2 0.9 0.81 0.1 0.81 0 0 0 0 changed
dising Sales merchandising_- general
Area sales_area fraction to 0.9,
task fraction to
0.1
Retail Facilities Retail Retail 1/Super- retail_supermar- 72.6 0.96 2 0.9 0.59 0.06 0.83 0 0 0.04 0.83 changed
market Sales ket_sales_area general
Area fraction to 0.9,
task fraction
134
to 0.06, wall
wash fraction
to 0.04
Retail Facilities Retail Retail 2/Specialty retail_specialty_- 39.6 0.96 4 0.9 0.44 0.06 0.76 0 0 0.04 0.76 changed
Store Sales Area store_sales_area general
fraction to 0.9,
task fraction
to 0.06, wall
wash fraction
to 0.04
Retail Facilities Retail Retail 3/Depart- retail_- 55 0.96 2 0.9 0.79 0.06 0.97 0 0 0.04 0.75 changed
ment Store Sales department_- general
Area store_sales_area fraction to 0.9,
task fraction
to 0.06, wall
wash fraction
to 0.04
Retail Facilities Retail Retail 4/Fine retail_fine_- 31.9 0.96 4 0.9 0.91 0.06 0.76 0 0 0.04 0.76 changed
Merchandise Sales merchandise_- general
Area sales_area fraction to 0.9,
task fraction
to 0.06, wall
wash fraction
to 0.04
Sports Arena Sports Arena Ring Sports Area sports_arena_- 110 0.96 2 1 0.82 0 0 0 0 0 0
ring_sports
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 1 -Court sports_arena_- 165 0.96 2 1 0.71 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sports Area class1
Continued from previous page
90.1 Space 90.1 Building 90.1 Space Type Prototype Total Room Current General General Task Task Suppl. Suppl. Wall Wall Notes
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
or Building Type Description Lighting Space Hori- Sur- Room Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Light- Wash Wash
Category Type zontal face Cavity ing ing ing ing ing ing Light- Light-
Illumi- Dirt Ratio Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- Frac- Coeffi- ing ing
nance Depre- tion cient tion cient tion cient Frac- Coeffi-
2
(lumens/ft )ciation of Uti- of Uti- of Uti- tion cient
liza- liza- liza- of Uti-
tion tion tion liza-
tion
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 2 - Court sports arena_- 110 0.96 2 1 0.68 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sports Area class2
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 3 - Court sports arena_- 82.5 0.96 2 1 0.79 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sports Area class3
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 4 - Court sports arena_- 55 0.96 2 1 0.79 0 0 0 0 0 0
Sports Area class4
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 1 - sports arena_- 93.8 0.96 2 1 0.47 0 0 0 0 0 0
Natatorium natatorium_class1
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 2 - sports arena_- 62.5 0.96 2 1 0.47 0 0 0 0 0 0
Natatorium natatorium_class2
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 3 - sports arena_- 55 0.96 2 1 0.68 0 0 0 0 0 0
Natatorium natatorium_class3
Sports Arena Sports Arena Class 4 - sports arena_- 33 0.96 2 1 0.68 0 0 0 0 0 0
Natatorium natatorium_class4
Transportation Transportation Airport Hanger transportation_- 55 0.96 7 1 0.47 0 0 0 0 0 0
Facility facility_airport_-
hanger
Transportation Transportation Air/Train/Bus - transportation 22 0.96 2 0.45 0.92 0.3 0.76 0 0 0.25 0.87
135
Building Type Space Type Pre-1980 1980-2004 90.1-2004 90.1-2007 90.1-2010 90.1-2013
FullServiceRestaurant Dining 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5
Basement 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Corridor 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Dining 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
ER_Exam 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5
ER_NurseStn 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4
ER_Trauma 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0
ER_Triage 2.7 2.7 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
HospitalOfficeFlr1 1.1
HospitalOfficeFlr5 1.0
ICU_NurseStn 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
ICU_Open 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
ICU_PatRm 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Lab 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0
Lobby 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
NurseStn 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Office 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
OR 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0
PatCorridor 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
PatRoom 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
PhysTherapy 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5
Hospital Radiology 4.9 4.9 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0
Banquet 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3
Basement 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Cafe 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Corridor 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
GuestRoom 1.3 1.3 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
GuestRoom2 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
GuestRoom3 1.3 1.3 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
GuestRoom4 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
GuestRoom8 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Laundry 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7
Lobby 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Mechanical 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Retail 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Retail2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
LargeHotel Storage 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
BreakRoom 5.6 5.6 5.6 4.5 4.5 4.5
Classroom 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
ClosedOffice 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.6 0.6 0.6
Conference 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.4 0.4 0.4
Corridor 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2
Dining 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Elec/MechRoom 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
IT_Room 2.0 2.0 2.0 1.6 1.6 1.6
Lobby 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.1
MediumOffice - 1.3 1.3 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6
Breakroom
MediumOffice - 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
Classroom
MediumOffice - 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
ClosedOffice
MediumOffice - 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Conference
MediumOffice - Corridor 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
MediumOffice - Dining 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
MediumOffice - 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Elec/MechRoom
MediumOffice - Lobby 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
MediumOffice - 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
OpenOffice
136
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Continued from previous page
Building Type Space Type Pre-1980 1980–2004 90.1-2004 90.1-2007 90.1-2010 90.1-2013
MediumOffice - 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Restroom
MediumOffice - Stair 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0
MediumOffice - Storage 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
OfficeLarge Data Center 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
OfficeLarge Main Data 45.0 45.0 45.0 45.0 45.0 45.0
Center
OpenOffice 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.7 0.7 0.7
PrintRoom 5.4 5.4 5.4 2.8 2.8 2.8
Restroom 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.1
SmallOffice - Breakroom 1.3 1.3 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6
SmallOffice - Classroom 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
SmallOffice - ClosedOf- 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
fice
SmallOffice - Conference 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
SmallOffice - Corridor 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
SmallOffice - Dining 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
SmallOffice - Elec/Mech- 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Room
SmallOffice - Lobby 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
SmallOffice - OpenOffice 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
SmallOffice - Restroom 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
SmallOffice - Stair 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
SmallOffice - Storage 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Stair 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Storage 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Vending 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9
WholeBuilding - Lg 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Office
WholeBuilding - Lg 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Office-basement
WholeBuilding - Lg 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Office-others
WholeBuilding - Md 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Office
Office WholeBuilding - Sm 1.0 1.0 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
Office
Anesthesia 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
BioHazard 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Cafe 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
CleanWork 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Conference 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
DressingRoom 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Elec/MechRoom 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0
ElevatorPumpRoom 0.0 0.0 5.3 5.3 3.5 2.1
Exam 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Hall 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Hall_infil 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
IT_Room 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Janitor 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Lobby 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
LockerRoom 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Lounge 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
MedGas 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
MRI 53.3 53.3 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0
MRI_Control 1.1 1.1 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0
NurseStation 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Office 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
OR 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0
OutpatientFloor2Work 0.9
PACU 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
PhysicalTherapy 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5
PreOp 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
ProcedureRoom 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Reception 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Soil Work 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Stair 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Toilet 0.7 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Undeveloped 0.0 0.0 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Outpatient Xray 1.3 1.3 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0
Cafeteria 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Classroom 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
ComputerRoom 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Corridor 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Gym 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Library 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Lobby 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Mechanical 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Office 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
PrimarySchool Restroom 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
137
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Continued from previous page
Building Type Space Type Pre-1980 1980–2004 90.1-2004 90.1-2007 90.1-2010 90.1-2013
QuickServiceRestaurant Dining 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6
Back_Space 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
Core_Retail 0.2 0.2
Entry 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Front_Retail 0.2 0.2
Point_of_Sale 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5
Retail Retail 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Auditorium 0.4 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Cafeteria 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Classroom 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
ComputerRoom 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Corridor 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Gym 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Gym - audience 0.1 0.1
Library 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Lobby 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Mechanical 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Office 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
SecondarySchool Restroom 0.1 0.1 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
Corridor 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Elec/MechRoom 198.2 198.2 198.2 198.2 198.2 198.2
Exercise 1.1 1.1 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.7
GuestLounge 1.4 1.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4
GuestRoom 1.3 1.3 0.1
GuestRoom4Occ 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
GuestRoom4Vac 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
GuestRoom123Occ 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
GuestRoom123Vac 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Laundry 2.0 2.0 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6
Mechanical 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Meeting 1.2 1.2 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6
Office 1.2 1.2 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3
PublicRestroom 1.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
StaffLounge 7.2 7.2 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Stair 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
SmallHotel Storage 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Strip mall - type 1 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Strip mall - type 2 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
StripMall Strip mall - type 3 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Bulk 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Fine 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Warehouse Office 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6
138
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Continued from previous page
Building Summary Statistic Description
stat.elevator_energy_consumption Annual energy consumption of elevators
stat.exterior_lighting_power Peak exterior lighting electricity usage
stat.hot_water_volume Annual hot water usage by volume
stat.area_fraction_with_dcv Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with DCV
stat.area_fraction_with_economizer Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with economizer
stat.area_fraction_with_heat_recovery Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with heat recovery
stat.area_fraction_with_motorized_oa_damper Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with motorized
outdoor air damper
stat.area_fraction_with_mz_vav_optimization Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with multizone vav
optimization
stat.area_fraction_with_supply_air_temperature_reset Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with supply air
temperature reset
stat.area_fraction_with_unoccupied_shutdown Fraction of floor area served by HVAC with unoccupied
shutdown
stat.average_boiler_efficiency Average efficiency of boilers
stat.average_chiller_cop Average cop of chillers
stat.average_gas_coil_efficiency Average gas coil efficiency
stat.boiler_capacity Sum of boiler capacity
stat.chiller_capacity Sum of chiller capacity
stat.cooling_equipment_capacity Sum of cooling equipment capacity
stat.hvac_count_boilers_0_to_300_kbtuh Count of boilers in size range
stat.hvac_count_boilers_2500_plus_kbtuh Count of boilers in size range
stat.hvac_count_boilers_300_to_2500_kbtuh Count of boilers in size range
stat.hvac_count_chillers_0_to_75_tons Count of chillers in size range
stat.hvac_count_chillers_150_to_300_tons Count of chillers in size range
stat.hvac_count_chillers_300_to_600_tons Count of chillers in size range
stat.hvac_count_chillers_600_plus_tons Count of chillers in size range
stat.hvac_count_chillers_75_to_150_tons Count of chillers in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_0_to_30_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_135_to_240_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_240_to_760_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_30_to_65_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_65_to_135_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_cooling_760_plus_kbtuh Count of dx cooling equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_heating_0_to_30_kbtuh Count of dx heating equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_heating_135_to_240_kbtuh Count of dx heating equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_heating_240_plus_kbtuh Count of dx heating equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_heating_30_to_65_kbtuh Count of dx heating equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_dx_heating_65_to_135_kbtuh Count of dx heating equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_furnace_0_to_30_kbtuh Count of furnace equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_furnace_135_to_240_kbtuh Count of furnace equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_furnace_240_plus_kbtuh Count of furnace equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_furnace_30_to_65_kbtuh Count of furnace equipment in size range
stat.hvac_count_furnace_65_to_135_kbtuh Count of furnace equipment in size range
stat.design_chiller_cop Design cop of chiller
stat.dx_cooling_average_cop DX cooling COP during operation averaged across all
cooling coils
stat.dx_cooling_capacity_tons Sum of dx cooling capacity
stat.dx_cooling_design_cop DX cooling COP at rated conditions averaged across all
cooling coils
stat.dx_cooling_design_seer_0_to_30_kbtuh Design seer of dx cooling coils for 0–30 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_cooling_design_seer_30_to_65_kbtuh Design seer of dx cooling coils for 30–65 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_cooling_design_eer_65_to_135_kbtuh Design eer of dx cooling coils for 65–135 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_cooling_design_ieer_65_to_135_kbtuh Design ieer of dx cooling coils for 65–135 kBtuh equip-
ment
139
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Continued from previous page
Building Summary Statistic Description
stat.dx_cooling_design_eer_135_to_240_kbtuh Design eer of dx cooling coils for 135–240 kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_cooling_design_ieer_135_to_240_kbtuh Design ieer of dx cooling coils for 135–240 kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_cooling_design_eer_240_to_760_kbtuh Design eer of dx cooling coils for 240–760 kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_cooling_design_ieer_240_to_760_kbtuh Design ieer of dx cooling coils for 240–760 kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_cooling_design_eer_760_plus_kbtuh Design eer of dx cooling coils for 760 plus kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_cooling_design_ieer_760_plus_kbtuh Design ieer of dx cooling coils for 760 plus kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_heating_average_cop Average dx heating cop
stat.dx_heating_average_minimum_operating_temperature Average minimum operating temperature of DX heating
coils
stat.dx_heating_capacity_at_17F Sum of dx heating capacity at 17◦ F
stat.dx_heating_capacity_at_5F Sum of dx heating capacity at 5◦ F
stat.dx_heating_capacity_at_rated Sum of dx heating capacity
stat.dx_heating_design_cop Design cop of dx heating coils
stat.dx_heating_design_cop_135_to_240_kbtuh Design cop of dx heating coils for 135–240 kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_heating_design_cop_17f Design cop of dx heating coils at 17◦ F
stat.dx_heating_design_cop_240_plus_kbtuh Design cop of dx heating coils for 240 plus kBtuh equip-
ment
stat.dx_heating_design_cop_5f Design cop of dx heating coils at 5◦ F
stat.dx_heating_design_cop_65_to_135_kbtuh Design cop of dx heating coils for 65–135 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_heating_design_hspf_0_to_30_kbtuh Design hspf of dx heating coils for 0–30 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_heating_design_hspf_30_to_65_kbtuh Design hspf of dx heating coils for 30–65 kBtuh equipment
stat.dx_heating_supplemental_capacity_electric Sum of dx heating supplemental capacity electric
stat.dx_heating_supplemental_capacity_gas Sum of dx heating supplemental capacity gas
stat.dx_heating_supplemental_capacity Sum of dx heating supplemental capacity
stat.dx_heating_fraction_supplemental Fraction of dx heating system load met by associated
supplemental coil
stat.dx_heating_defrost_energy Sum of defrost energy use of a dx heating coil
stat.dx_heating_ratio_defrost Ratio of defrost energy use to total heating load of dx
heating system
stat.dx_heating_hours_below_minus_20F Number of hours with an outdoor air temperature below
-20◦ F
stat.dx_heating_hours_below_0F Number of hours with an outdoor air temperature below
0◦ F
stat.dx_heating_hours_below_5F Number of hours with an outdoor air temperature below
5◦ F
stat.dx_heating_hours_below_17F Number of hours with an outdoor air temperature below
17◦ F
stat.furnace_capacity Sum of furnace capacity
stat.heating_equipment Sum of heating equipment capacity
stat.interior_electric_equipment_eflh Annual interior electric equipment effective full load hours
stat.interior_electric_equipment_power_density Interior electric equipment power density
stat.interior_lighting_eflh Annual interior lighting effective full load hours
stat.interior_lighting_power_density Interior lighting power density
stat.internal_mass_area_ratio Ratio of internal mass to floor area
stat.occupant_density_ppl_per_m_2 Occupant density, people per unit area
stat.occupant_eflh Effective full load hours of occupants
stat.average_window_shgc Solar heat gain coefficient of windows
stat.average_window_u_value Conductivity of windows
stat.window_to_wall_ratio Ratio of window area to exterior facade area
140
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Continued from previous page
Building Summary Statistic Description
stat.zone_hvac_fan_power_minimum_flow_fraction Fan power minimum flow fraction for zone HVAC equip-
ment
stat.zone_hvac_fan_static_pressure Fan static pressure for zone HVAC equipment
stat.zone_hvac_fan_total_efficiency Fan total efficiency for zone HVAC equipment
141
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Table 60. Interior Lighting Generation Distributions for ComStock 90.1-2013 Code Year
Energy Code Year gen1_t12_incandescent gen2_t8_halogen gen3_t5_cfl gen4_led gen5_led gen6_led gen7_led gen8_led
ComStock 90.1-2013 pre_1978 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1978 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1979 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1980 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1981 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1982 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1983 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1984 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1985 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1986 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1987 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1988 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1989 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1990 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1991 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1992 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1993 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1994 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1995 0 0.990 0.010 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1996 0 0.983 0.017 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1997 0 0.992 0.008 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1998 0 0.985 0.015 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 1999 0 0.987 0.013 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2000 0 0.973 0.027 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2001 0 0.981 0.019 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2002 0 0.967 0.033 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2003 0 0.966 0.034 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2004 0 0.964 0.036 0 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2005 0 0.911 0.040 0.049 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2006 0 0.910 0.049 0.041 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2007 0 0.887 0.050 0.062 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2008 0 0.826 0.058 0.115 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2009 0 0.810 0.047 0.143 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2010 0 0.782 0.050 0.168 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2011 0 0.738 0.055 0.207 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2012 0 0.598 0.055 0.348 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2013 0 0.670 0.043 0.287 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2014 0 0.568 0.055 0.377 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2015 0 0.553 0.059 0.387 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2016 0 0.519 0.051 0.430 0 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2017 0 0.413 0.042 0.313 0.231 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2018 0 0.241 0.031 0.345 0.382 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2019 0 0.191 0.022 0.264 0.523 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2020 0 0.195 0.022 0.311 0.472 0 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2021 0 0.146 0.011 0.196 0.551 0.096 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2022 0 0.107 0.009 0.168 0.612 0.104 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2023 0 0.058 0.006 0.116 0.738 0.082 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2024 0 0.049 0.004 0.100 0.689 0.157 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2025 0 0.037 0.003 0.069 0.695 0.195 0 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2026 0 0.025 0.002 0.061 0.691 0.154 0.067 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2027 0 0.017 0.002 0.043 0.594 0.213 0.131 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2028 0 0.013 0.002 0.035 0.615 0.195 0.140 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2029 0 0.011 0.001 0.024 0.463 0.236 0.264 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2030 0 0.007 0.001 0.017 0.396 0.220 0.360 0
ComStock 90.1-2013 2031 0 0.00683 0.000283 0.012582 0.33231 0.167166 0.444878 0.03595
ComStock 90.1-2013 2032 0 0.009644 0.000405 0.013502 0.286907 0.163947 0.409868 0.115727
ComStock 90.1-2013 2033 0 0.004305 0.000171 0.009392 0.182943 0.142833 0.508719 0.151637
ComStock 90.1-2013 2034 0 0.005903 0.000172 0.008657 0.175607 0.096412 0.408274 0.304976
ComStock 90.1-2013 2035 0 0.002496 0.000182 0.005823 0.132581 0.089427 0.317155 0.452336
ComStock 90.1-2013 2036 0 0.003223 0 0.006906 0.097836 0.069061 0.310773 0.512201
ComStock 90.1-2013 2037 0 0.006475 0 0.005396 0.080264 0.051261 0.168623 0.687981
ComStock 90.1-2013 2038 0 0.005624 0 0.005624 0.07683 0.068294 0.130561 0.713066
ComStock 90.1-2013 2039 0 0.004154 0 0.004154 0.088266 0.046729 0.116822 0.739875
ComStock 90.1-2013 2040 0 0.006483 0 0.004862 0.068882 0.008104 0.060778 0.850891
ComStock 90.1-2013 2041 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
ComStock 90.1-2013 2042 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
ComStock 90.1-2013 2043 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
142
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Table 61. Parking; Values From Thornton et al. Table 4.17
Building Type Building Area Units Per Students Beds Per Parking Area
Per Spot (ft2 ) Spot Per Spot Spot Per Spot (ft2 )
SmallOffice 250 405
MediumOffice 250 405
LargeOffice 620 405
Retail 285.7 405
StripMall 215 405
PrimarySchool 17 405
SecondarySchool 8 405
Outpatient 200 405
Hospital 0.83 405
SmallHotel 1 405
LargeHotel 1 405
Warehouse 1,000 405
QuickServiceRestaurant 100 405
FullServiceRestaurant 100 405
Template Building Occupancy Base Base Parking Main Other Entry Building Loading Drive
Facade Setback Site Site Areas En- Doors Canopies Fa- Areas Through
and Reduc- Al- Al- and tries (W/ft) (W/ft2 ) cades For Win-
Land- tion lowance lowance Drives (W/ft) (W/ft2 ) Emer- dows
scape Power Frac- (W/ft2 ) gency and
Auto- (W) tion Vehicles Doors
matic (W/ft2 ) (W)
Shut-
off
Pre-1980 FALSE 0 0.05 0.18 30 25 10 0.25 4 400
1980–2004 FALSE 0 0.05 0.049749 30 25 1.5 0.25 4 400
90.1-2004 TRUE 0 0.05 0.041458 30 20 1.25 0.2 0.5 400
90.1-2007 TRUE 0 0.05 0.041458 30 20 1.25 0.2 0.5 400
90.1-2010 TRUE 0.3 750 0.027638 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.5 400
90.1-2013 TRUE 0.3 750 0.027638 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.5 400
90.1-2016 TRUE 0.3 750 0.027638 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.5 400
90.1-2019 TRUE 0.3 750 0.027638 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.5 400
DEER 1985 FALSE 0 0.05 0.036491 30 25 1.5 0.25 4 400
DEER 1996 FALSE 0 0.05 0.036491 30 25 1.5 0.25 4 400
DEER 2003 TRUE 0 0.05 0.036491 30 20 1.25 0.2 0.5 400
DEER 2007 TRUE 0 0.05 0.036491 30 20 1.25 0.2 0.5 400
DEER 2011 TRUE 0.3 750 0.036491 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.5 400
DEER 2014 TRUE 0.3 750 0.018246 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.408 125
DEER 2015 TRUE 0.3 750 0.018246 30 20 0.4 0.15 0.408 125
DEER 2017 TRUE 0.3 520 0.018246 21 21 0.4 0.05 0.408 125
143
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Table 63. Entryways; Values From Thornton et al. Table 4.18
Building Type Rollup Entrance Other Entrance Emergency Canopy Floor Area
Doors (per Doors (per Doors (per Canopies Canopies Size (ft2 ) Per Drive
10,000 ft2 ) 10,000 ft2 ) 10,000 ft2 ) Through
Window
(ft2 )
SmallOffice 0.47 2 2
MediumOffice 0.13 1 3
LargeOffice 1 3
Retail 1.84 1 2.93
StripMall 0.05 6 6.6
PrimarySchool 0.07 2 3.3
SecondarySchool 0.1 2 2.45
Outpatient 0.1 1 5.19
Hospital 0.03 2 3.8 1 720
SmallHotel 2 28.91 1 720
LargeHotel 2 2.27 1 1,620
Warehouse 3.67 1 2
QuickServiceRestaurant 2 1 2,500
FullServiceRestaurant 1 3
Building Type Avg. Area Per Avg. Beds Per Pas- Avg. Units Per
Passenger Eleva- senger Elevator Passenger Eleva-
tor (ft2 ) tor
FullServiceRestaurant 15,000
Hospital 100
LargeHotel 75
LargeOffice 45,000
MediumOffice 45,000
Outpatient 15,000
PrimarySchool 100,000
QuickServiceRestaurant 15,000
Retail 45,000
SecondarySchool 100,000
SmallHotel 75
SmallOffice 45,000
StripMall 45,000
Warehouse 100,000
Building Type Avg. Area Per Avg. Beds Per Avg. Units Per
Freight Elevator Freight Elevator Freight Elevator
(ft2 )
Hospital 100
LargeHotel 150
LargeOffice 500,000
Warehouse 250,000
144
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Table 67. Water Heating Efficiency by HVAC Template, Heater Capacity, and Fuel Type
Template Fuel Type Minimum Maximum Energy Energy Standby Standby Standby Hourly Hourly Thermal Notes
Ca- Ca- Factor Factor Loss Loss Loss Loss Loss Effi-
pacity pacity Base Vol- Base Ca- Vol- Base Vol- ciency
(Btu/hr) (Btu/hr) (%) ume (Btu/hr) pacity ume (%) ume (%)
Derate Al- Al- Al-
(%/gal) lowance lowance lowance
(Btu/hr*gal) (%/gal)
Pre-1980 Electricity 0 40945.99 0.93 0.00132
Through Electricity 40946 No 20 35 From DOE Reference Buildings
1980–2004 max
Natural gas 0 No 0.78
max
Electricity 0 40945.99 0.93 0.00132
90.1-2004 Electricity 40946 No 20 35
Through From 90.1 Table 7.8
max
2010 Natural gas 0 74999.99 0.62 0.0019
Natural gas 75000 No 800 110 0.8
max
Electricity 0 40945.99 0.97 0.00132
Electricity 40946 No 0.3 27
90.1-2013 From 90.1-2013 Table 7.8
max
Natural gas 0 74999.99 0.67 0.0019
Natural gas 75000 No 800 110 0.8
max
Electricity 0 40945.99 0.96 0.0003 From 90.1 Table F-2,
90.1-2016 Rated Storage Volume
Through <= 55 gal
2019 Electricity 40946 No 0.3 27
max
Natural gas 0 74999.99 0.675 0.0015 From 90.1 Table F-2,
Rated Storage Volume
<= 55 gal
Natural gas 75000 No 800 110 0.8
max
145
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Table 68. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedule Assign-
ments Based on Template, Building Type, and Space Type (Part 1 of 3)
Template Building Type Space Type Service Water Heat- Service Water Heat-
ing Peak Flow per ing Schedule
Area (gal/h*ft2 )
All FullServiceRestaurant Kitchen 0.08861 RestaurantSitDown
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All Hospital ER_Exam 0.00333 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All Hospital ER_Trauma 0.00333 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All Hospital ER_Triage 0.00333 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All Hospital Kitchen 0.015 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All Hospital Lab 0.0007 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_SCH
All Hospital OR 0.00333 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_SCH
All Hospital PatRoom 0.00357 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All Hospital PhysTherapy 0.00019 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_SCH
All Hospital Radiology 0.00019 Hospital BLDG_-
SWH_EXTD_SCH
All LargeHotel GuestRoom 0.00298 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom2 0.00473 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom2 0.08994 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom3 0.00298 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom4 0.00473 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom4 0.0426 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom5 0.0036 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom6 0.00294 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom7 0.00215 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel GuestRoom8 0.00473 HotelLarge Gue-
stRoom_SWH_Sch
All LargeHotel Kitchen 0.1196 HotelLarge BLDG_-
SWH_SCH
90.1-2004 and Later LargeHotel Laundry 0.18643 HotelLarge Laundry-
Room_SWH_Sch_-
Post2004
Pre 90.1-2004 LargeHotel Laundry 0.18643 HotelLarge Laundry-
Room_SWH_Sch_-
Pre2004
146
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Table 69. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedule Assign-
ments Based on Template, Building Type, and Space Type (Part 2 of 3)
Template Building Type Space Type Service Water Heat- Service Water Heat-
ing Peak Flow per ing Schedule
Area (gal/h*ft2 )
Pre 90.1-2004 Office MediumOffice - 0.01845 Medium Office Bldg
Elec/MechRoom Swh
90.1-2004 and Later Office MediumOffice - 0.03171 OfficeMedium
Elec/MechRoom BLDG_SWH_SCH
All Office Restroom 0.20471 OfficeLarge BLDG_-
SWH_SCH
All Office SmallOffice - 0.00055 OfficeSmall BLDG_-
Elec/MechRoom SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Office WholeBuilding - Lg 0.00013 OfficeLarge BLDG_-
Office SWH_SCH
90.1-2004 and Later Office WholeBuilding - Lg 0.00052 OfficeLarge BLDG_-
Office SWH_SCH
All Office WholeBuilding - Lg 0.00052 OfficeLarge BLDG_-
Office-basement SWH_SCH
All Office WholeBuilding - Lg 0.00052 OfficeLarge BLDG_-
Office-others SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Office WholeBuilding - Md 0.00055 OfficeMedium
Office BLDG_SWH_SCH
90.1-2004 and Later Office WholeBuilding - Md 0.00095 OfficeMedium
Office BLDG_SWH_SCH
All Office WholeBuilding - Sm 0.00055 OfficeSmall BLDG_-
Office SWH_SCH
All Retail Back_Space 0.00535 RetailStandalone
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All SecondarySchool Gym 0.0075 SchoolSecondary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All SecondarySchool Gym - audience 0.0075 SchoolSecondary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All SecondarySchool Kitchen 0.0572 SchoolSecondary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All SecondarySchool Restroom 0.0231 SchoolSecondary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All SmallHotel GuestRoom 0.00499 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
Pre 90.1-2004 SmallHotel GuestRoom123Occ 0.00499 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
90.1-2004 and Later SmallHotel GuestRoom123Occ 0.00632 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
Pre 90.1-2004 SmallHotel GuestRoom123Vac 0.00499 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
90.1-2004 and Later SmallHotel GuestRoom123Vac 0.00632 HotelSmall AlwaysOff
Pre 90.1-2004 SmallHotel GuestRoom4Occ 0.00499 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
90.1-2004 and Later SmallHotel GuestRoom4Occ 0.00632 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
Pre 90.1-2004 SmallHotel GuestRoom4Vac 0.00499 HotelSmall Gue-
stRoom_SHW_Sch
90.1-2004 and Later SmallHotel GuestRoom4Vac 0.00632 HotelSmall AlwaysOff
All SmallHotel Laundry 0.0641 HotelSmall Laundry-
Room_SHW_Sch
147
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Table 70. Service Water Heating Flow Rate and Schedule Assign-
ments Based on Template, Building Type, and Space Type (part 3 of 3)
Template Building Type Space Type Service Water Heat- Service Water Heat-
ing Peak Flow per ing Schedule
Area (gal/h*ft2 )
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient Anesthesia 0.00926 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient Anesthesia 0.01852 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient MRI 0.00227 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient MRI 0.00455 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient MRI_Control 0.00595 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient MRI_Control 0.0119 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient OR 0.01271 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient OR 0.02542 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient PACU 0.00316 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient PACU 0.00633 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient PhysicalTherapy 0.00106 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient PhysicalTherapy 0.00211 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient PreOp 0.0038 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient PreOp 0.00759 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient ProcedureRoom 0.00351 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient ProcedureRoom 0.00702 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 Outpatient Xray 0.00111 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH_-
Pre2004
90.1-2004 and Later Outpatient Xray 0.00222 OutPatientHealthCare
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All PrimarySchool Kitchen 0.05531 SchoolPrimary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
All PrimarySchool Restroom 0.02763 SchoolPrimary
BLDG_SWH_SCH
Pre 90.1-2004 QuickServiceRestaurant Kitchen 0.032 QuickServiceRestaurant
Bldg Swh
90.1-2004 and Later QuickServiceRestaurant Kitchen 0.032 RestaurantFastFood
BLDG_SWH_SCH
148
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Table 71. Unitary DX Cooling Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
Template Minimum Maximum Minimum Minimum Minimum Capacity Capacity EIR EIR EIR
Capacity Capacity Seasonal Energy Inte- Function Function Function Function Function
(Btu/hr) (Btu/hr) Energy Effi- grated of Tem- of of Tem- of of PLR
Effi- ciency Part perature Airflow perature Airflow
ciency Ratio Load
Ratio (EER)* Value
(SEER) (kW/-
ton)*
Pre-1980 - 64,999 11.06 - -
Pre-1980 65,000 134,999 - 9.63 -
Pre-1980 135,000 239,999 - 9.28 - DX Clg DX Clg DX Clg
DX Clg DX Clg
Pre-1980 240,000 759,999 - 8.92 - Coil Coil Coil
Coil Coil
Pre-1980 760,000 no max - 8.63 - Cool- Cool- Cool-
Cool- Cool-
1980– - 64,999 9.7 - CAP- EIR- PLF-
Cap-fT EIR-fT
2004 fFlow fFlow fPLR
1980– 65,000 134,999 - 8.9 8.3
2004
1980– 135,000 759,999 - 8.5 7.5
2004
1980– 760,000 no max - 8.2 7.5
2004
90.1-2004 - 64,999 9.7 -
90.1-2004 65,000 134,999 - 10.1 -
90.1-2004 135,000 239,999 - 9.5 - CoilClg_-
90.1-2004 240,000 759,999 - 9.3 9.5 CoilClg_- CoilClg_- CoilClg_- CoilClg_-
DXS-
90.1-2004 760,000 no max - 9 9.2 DXQRa- DXSngl_- DXEIR- DXEIR-
nglEIR-
90.1-2007 - 64,999 13 - - tio_- QRatio_- Ratio_- Ratio_-
Ratio_-
90.1-2007 65,000 134,999 - 10.1 - fTwbToad- fCFMRa- fTwbToad- fQFrac
fCFMRa-
90.1-2007 135,000 239,999 - 9.5 - bSI tio bSI
tio
90.1-2007 240,000 759,999 - 9.3 9.5
90.1-2007 760,000 no max - 9 9.2
PSZ-Fine
90.1-2010 - 64,999 13 - - PSZ-AC Split HPA-
Storage DX Coil
DX Coil Cap-FF DX Coil DX Coil CCOOL-
90.1-2010 65,000 134,999 - 11 - Cap-FT EIR-FT EIR-FF PLFFPLR
PSZ-AC-
90.1-2010 135,000 239,999 - 10.8 - CoolC- PSZ-AC-
Cool-
AHU-1- PSZ-AC- Lennox- CoolC-
CLennox-
CoolC- CoolC- Standard10- Lennox-
Standard-
90.1-2010 240,000 759,999 - 9.8 - Standard- Standard- Ton- Standard-
10Ton-
10Ton- 10Ton- TGA12- 10Ton-
TGA12-
CapFF EIRFT 0S2B- TGA12-
0S2B-
90.1-2010 760,000 no max - 9.5 9.2 EIRFFF 0S2BPLR
CapFT
90.1-2013 - 64,999 13 -
90.1-2013 - 64,999 14 -
90.1-2013 65,000 134,999 - 11 11.2
90.1-2013 135,000 239,999 - 10.8 11
90.1-2013 240,000 759,999 - 9.8 9.9
90.1-2013 760,000 no max - 9.5 9.6
90.1-2013 65,000 134,999 - 11 12.7
90.1-2013 135,000 239,999 - 10.8 12.2 PSZ-
PSZ- PSZ- PSZ-AC PSZ-
90.1-2013 240,000 759,999 - 9.8 11.4 AC_-
AC_Uni- AC_- DX AC_-
90.1-2013 760,000 no max - 9.5 11 Unitary_-
tary_- Unitary_- Unitary Unitary_-
90.1-2016 - 64,999 14 - Package-
Package- Package- Package Package-
90.1-2016 65,000 134,999 - 11 11.2 cool-
coolCapFT coolFFF EIRFT coolPLR
90.1-2016 135,000 239,999 - 10.8 11 EIRFFF
90.1-2016 240,000 759,999 - 9.8 9.9
90.1-2016 760,000 no max - 9.5 9.6
90.1-2019 - 64,999 14 - -
90.1-2019 65,000 134,999 - 11 12.7
90.1-2019 135,000 239,999 - 10.8 12.2
90.1-2019 240,000 759,999 - 9.8 11.4
90.1-2019 760,000 no max - 9.5 11
*EER and kW/ton are 0.2 higher when electric resistance heating is used.
149
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Table 72. PTAC DX Cooling Efficiency and Performance Curve Assignment
Template Minimum Maximum Minimum PTAC_- PTAC_- Capacity Capacity EIR EIR EIR
Capacity Capacity Energy EER_- EER_- Function Function Function Function Function
(Btu/hr) (Btu/hr) Effi- Coeffi- Coeffi- of Tem- of of Tem- of of PLR
ciency cient_1 cient_2 perature Airflow perature Airflow
Ratio
(EER)
Pre-1980 - no max 10 0.16 DOE DOE DOE DOE DOE
1980– - no max 10 0.16 Ref DX Ref DX Ref DX Ref DX Ref DX
2004 Clg Coil Clg Coil Clg Coil Clg Coil Clg Coil
90.1-2004 - no max 12.5 0.213 Cool- Cool- Cool- Cool- Cool-
90.1-2007 - no max 12.5 0.213 Cap-fT CAP- EIR-fT EIR- PLF-
90.1-2010 - no max 13.8 0.3 PSZ-Fine fFlow fFlow fPLR
90.1-2013 - no max 14 0.3 Storage DX Coil PSZ-AC Split HPAC-
90.1-2016 - no max 14 0.3 DX Coil Cap-FF DX Coil DX Coil COOLPL-
90.1-2019 - 6,999 11.9 Cap-FT EIR-FT EIR-FF FFPLR
90.1-2019 6,999 14,999 14 0.3
90.1-2019 14,999 no max 9.5
150
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Table 73. Motor Efficiency for Fans and Pumps
151
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Table 74. AHU Unoccupied Operation Mode Percentages by Building Type Informed by BAS Data Source
Table 75. Fraction of Floor Area Controlled by HVAC System With DCV by Building Type and Code Year
Building Type DOE Ref DOE Ref 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- 90.1- DEER:
Pre-1980 1980– 2004 2007 2010 2013 All Years
2004
FullService- 0 0 0 0.349 0.072 0.085 0
Restaurant
Hospital 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LargeHotel 0 0 0 0.001 0.001 0.016 0
LargeOffice 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
MediumOffice 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Outpatient 0 0 0 0.036 0.028 0.027 0
PrimarySchool 0 0 0 0.111 0.009 0.046 0
QuickService- 0 0 0 0.05 0.008 0.045 0
Restaurant
RetailStandalone 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
RetailStripmall 0 0 0 0.105 0.043 0.026 0
SecondarySchool 0 0 0 0.045 0.004 0.054 0
SmallHotel 0 0 0 0.004 0 0 0
SmallOffice 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Warehouse 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
152
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Table 77. Air-Source Heat Pump Performance Curves
Template Subcategory Minimum Maximum Capacity Capacity EIR Func- EIR EIR
Capacity Capacity Function of Function of tion of Function of Function of
(Btu/hr) (Btu/hr) Tempera- Airflow Tempera- Airflow PLR
ture ture
Pre-1980 All All All DXHEAT- DXHEAT- DXHEAT- DXHEAT- DXHEAT-
Through NECB2011- NECB2011- NECB2011- NECB2011- NECB2011-
90.1-2010 REF- REF- REF- REF- REF-
PTHP 0 no max CAPFT CAPFFLOW EIRFT EIRFFLOW PLFFPLR
Split 0 29,999
90.1-2013 System,
Through Single
90.1-2019 Package
Split System 0 64,999
Single 0 64,999 HPACHeat- HPACHeat- HPACHeat- HPACHeat- HPACCOOL-
Package CapFT CapFFF EIRFT EIRFFF PLFFPLR
Single 65,000 134,999
Package
Single 135,000 no max
Package
Schedule Form Dep. Ind. Ind. coeff_1 coeff_2 coeff_3 coeff_4 coeff_5 coeff_6 Notes
Name Var Var 1 Var 2
AirCooled_- Biquadratic QRatio Tchws Toadb 1.0433825 0.0407073 0.0004506 -0.00415 -8.9E-05 -0.00035 Based
Chiller_2010_- on Dick
PathA_CAPFT Lord’s
AirCooled_- Biquadratic EIR_- Tchws Toadb 0.5961915 -0.00995 0.0007888 0.000451 0.000488 -0.00076 study
Chiller_2010_- Ratio dated
PathA_EIRFT January
AirCooled_- Quadratic EIR_- PLR - 1.41E-01 6.55E-01 2.03E-01 - - - 17, 2010.
Chiller_All- Ratio
Capacities_-
2004_2010_-
EIRFPLR
ChlrAir_Re- Biquadratic QRatio Tchws Toadb 1.12603 0.041571 0.000253 -0.01053 0.00001 -0.00026 From
cipQRatio_- CBECC
fTchwsToad- Ap-
bSI pendix_-
ChlrAir_- Biquadratic EIR_- Tchws Toadb 0.542784 -0.013907 0.000476 0.012197 0.000149 -0.00033 3.7_-
RecipEIRRa- Ratio Perfor-
tio_fTchw- mance_-
sToadbSI Curves-
ChlrAir_- Quadratic EIR_- PLR - 0.114437 0.545933 0.342299 - - - S901G_-
RecipEIRRa- Ratio .xlsx
tio_fQRatio
ChlrAir_- Biquadratic EIR_- Tchws Toadb 0.702194 -0.004466 0.000535 -0.00551 0.000544 -0.00073
ScrollEIRRa- Ratio
tio_fTchw-
sToadbSI
ChlrAir_Scrol- Biquadratic QRatio Tchws Toadb 1.02138 0.037021 0.000233 -0.00389 -6.5E-05 -0.00027
lQRatio_fTch-
wsToadbSI
ChlrAir_- Quadratic EIR_- PLR - 0.063691 0.584888 0.352803 - - -
ScrollEIRRa- Ratio
tio_fQRatio
153
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Table 79. Water-Cooled Chiller Performance Curves
Schedule Form Dependent Ind. Ind. coeff_1 coeff_2 coeff_3 coeff_4 coeff_5 coeff_6 Notes
Name Var Var 1 Var 2
ChlrWtr- Quadratic EIRPLR QRatio 0.310965 0.322519 0.372745 From
PosDisp- CBECC
PathAAll- Ap-
EIRRatio_- pendix_-
fQRatio 3.7_-
ChlrWtr- Biquadratic CapFT Tchws Tcws 0.96744 0.037082 0.000434 -0.00584 -4.9E-05 -0.00027 Perfor-
PosDisp- mance_-
PathAAll- Curves-
QRatio_- S901G.xlsx
fTchw-
sTcwsSI
ChlrWtr- Biquadratic EIRFT Tchws Tcws 0.665307 -0.009339 0.000483 0.009492 0.000544 -0.00086
PosDisp-
PathAAll-
EIRRatio_-
fTchw-
sTcwsSI
WaterCooled_- Biquadratic CapFT Tchws Toadb 0.906115 0.029228 -0.00036 -0.00097 -9.1E-05 0.000253 Based on
PositiveDis- Dick Lord’s
placement_- study dated
Chiller_- January 17,
LT150_- 2010.
2010_-
PathA_-
CAPFT
WaterCooled_- Biquadratic EIRFT Tchws Toadb 0.361711 -0.022983 0.000952 0.013189 0.000375 -0.00071
PositiveDis-
placement_-
Chiller_-
LT150_-
2010_-
PathA_-
EIRFT
154
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Table 81. Refrigeration Compressor Data
155
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Appendix B Figures
[Intentinoally Blank]
156
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Figure 44. Number of samples by building type and utility in the commercial AMI data set used to derive hours of operation
schedules. See EULP Final Technical Report Table 10 for more detail. For example, "epb" is AMI data from Chattanooga, TN.
157
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Figure 45. Distribution of small office hours of operations extracted from AMI data (from seven utilities), by day
type and season, and compared to ComStock before updates. This figure shows how the hours of operation
(start time and duration of the high load period) are influenced by season (all utilities are combined in this plot).
158
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Figure 46. Distribution of small office hours of operations extracted from AMI data (from seven utilities), by util-
ity and day type, and compared to ComStock before updates. This figure shows how the hours of operation (start
time and duration of the high load period) are influenced by utility region (all seasons are combined in this plot).
159
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Figure 47. California base occupancy schedules for food service, lodging, healthcare, and education ComStock building types.
160
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Figure 48. California base occupancy schedules for retail, office, and warehouse ComStock building types.
Figure 49. SWH heating usage schedule for full service restaurants.
161
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Figure 50. SWH heating usage schedule for hospitals.
162
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Figure 52. SWH heating usage schedule for large office.
163
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Figure 54. SWH heating usage schedule for small offices.
164
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Figure 56. SWH heating usage schedule for primary school.
Figure 57. SWH heating usage schedule for quick service restaurant.
165
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Figure 58. SWH heating usage schedule for retail.
166
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Figure 60. SWH heating usage schedule for small hotel.
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Figure 62. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for full
service restaurants. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 63. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS
for hospitals. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 64. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
large hotels. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 65. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
large offices. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
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Figure 66. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
medium offices. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 67. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
outpatient. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 68. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
primary schools. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 69. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for quick
service restaurants. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
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Figure 70. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS
for retail. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 71. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
secondary schools. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 72. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
small hotel. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 73. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
small office. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
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Figure 74. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
strip malls. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
Figure 75. Area-weighted vs. building-count-weighted comparison of fuel type prevalence between ComStock and CBECS for
warehouses. From left to right, the fuel types on the x-axis are: district heating, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and propane.
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Figure 76. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; all building types.
Figure 77. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; full service restaurants.
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Figure 78. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; hospitals.
Figure 79. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; large offices.
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Figure 80. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; medium offices.
Figure 81. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; outpatient.
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Figure 82. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; primary schools.
Figure 83. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; quick service restaurants.
Figure 84. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; strip malls.
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Figure 85. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; retail.
Figure 86. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; secondary schools.
Figure 87. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; small hotels.
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Figure 88. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; small offices.
Figure 89. Prevalence of ComStock HVAC system types by total stock floor area and building count; warehouses.
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Figure 90. Percentage of buildings with thermostat setbacks by building type from the CBECS 2012 survey.
Figure 91. Thermostat heating and cooling set point-setback delta correlation from BAS data sources; all building types.
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Figure 92. Boiler part load performance curves.
Figure 93. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of part load ratio performance curves.
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Figure 94. DX cooling capacity as a function of airflow performance curves.
Figure 95. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of airflow performance curves.
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Figure 96. DX cooling energy input ratio as a function of temperature performance curves. Independent variables are outdoor
air dry bulb temperature (y-axis, degrees Celsius) and wet bulb temperature entering the cooling coil (x-axis, degrees Celsius).
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Figure 97. DX cooling capacity as a function of temperature performance curves. Independent variables are outdoor air dry
bulb temperature (y-axis, degrees Celsius) and wet bulb temperature entering the cooling coil (x-axis, degrees Celsius).
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Figure 98. Air-source heat pump COP ratio as a function of outdoor air dry bulb temperature.
Figure 99. Air-source heat pump EIR ratio as a function of part load ratio.
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Figure 100. Air-source heat pump EIR ratio as a function of airflow fraction.
Figure 101. Air-source heat pump capacity as a function of outdoor air dry bulb temperature.
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Figure 102. Air-source heat pump capacity as a function of airflow ratio.
Figure 103. Air-cooled chiller EIR as a function of part load ratio performance curves. Indepen-
dent variables beyond the curve limits will use the bound of the curve limit during simulation.
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Figure 104. “AirCooledChiller2010PathA” modifier performance curves; capacity as a function of temperature and EIR as a
function of temperature. Independent variables beyond the curve limits will use the bound of the curve limit during simulation.
Figure 105. “ChlrAirRecip” modifier performance curves; capacity as a function of temperature and EIR as a function
of temperature. Independent variables beyond the curve limits will use the bound of the curve limit during simulation.
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Figure 106. Energy input ratio modifier as a function of water-cooled chiller part load ratio.
Figure 107. Performance curves for “WaterCooled PositiveDisplacement Chiller LT150 2010 Modifiers” WCC.
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Figure 108. Performance curves for “ChlrWtrPosDispPathAAll Modifiers” WCC.
Figure 109. Ground loop outlet vs. inlet temperature relationship for GSHPs.
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Figure 110. Power and capacity values as a function of suction and dis-
charge temperature for small, old, medium-temperature compressors.
Figure 111. Power and capacity values as a function of suction and dis-
charge temperature for large, new, medium-temperature compressors.
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Figure 112. Power and capacity values as a function of suction and dis-
charge temperature for small, old, low-temperature compressors.
Figure 113. Power and capacity values as a function of suction and dis-
charge temperature for large, new, low-temperature compressors.
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