Comparing two buildings to determine which is more energy efficient is no easy task. “Energy efficient” can mean many different measures, performance standards, and upgrades depending on the building being analyzed. There is no one measure or point at which a building goes from being inefficient to efficient and each building is different with its own set of variables used to determine overall efficiency.
Some of the variables used to determine the energy efficiency of a home might include:
- Square footage of the home
- Number of people living in the home
- Energy input needed to maintain a consistent temperature in the home
- Amount of electricity used annually
Green Building Advisor‘s Bill Maclay uses a comparison between two glasses of water to exemplify just how complicated it is to determine building efficiency compared to other seemingly similar infrastructure.
How, then, can we compare buildings to display the benefits of energy efficiency measures to provide incentives for net-zero buildings?
Read Bill Maclay’s full article here >>
