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Seattle’s Municipal Buildings On Track to Meet Energy Efficiency Goal

Seattle recently released the 2016-2017 City of Seattle Building Energy Performance and Carbon Emissions Report. The report provides 2017 energy use data (and compares it to 2016 data) for all City facilities larger than 10,000 square feet, as well as all libraries, community centers, fire stations and police stations.

The City’s goal is to reduce energy use across City-owned buildings 20% by 2020 (from 2008). Based on this analysis, we have achieved 14.5% reduction in energy use across the municipal portfolio through 2017.

The report shows that, where the City has focused on energy efficiency, we’re seeing energy savings. The report also highlights a number of facilities where energy use increased, generally reflecting extended hours, additional programming, changing use, mechanical system or equipment failures, or a return to expected usage after an abnormal dip in 2016.

Adjusted for weather, 63% of the portfolio saw energy use reductions in 2017, while the remaining 37% used more energy than in 2016. Adjusted for weather, year-over-year energy use intensity declined by 2.7% from 2016 to 2017, which brings cumulative portfolio-wide reductions to 14.5% (from 2008 baseline). This keeps us on track to meet our goal of 20% reduction in energy use intensity for municipal buildings by 2020. Congratulations to all of our departmental partners for progress towards these goals, and continuous hard work.

In addition to the results on energy consumption, the report also includes information on carbon emissions for each of the benchmarked buildings, and identifies key building groups that contribute most of the municipal portfolio carbon footprint.