Energy end uses in large buildings

What building functions and services require the most energy?

Highlights

Space heating and domestic hot water account for about 70 percent of site energy use in multifamily buildings.
Electric end uses, such as cooling, plug loads, lighting and ventilation, are more prominent in office buildings than other building sectors.
Large multifamily buildings use more energy for heating than large office buildings use in total.

What we do in buildings largely determines the amount of energy they use. Energy end uses—the energy-using services in a building—can be tied to creating a livable and healthy indoor environment (space heating and cooling, domestic hot water production and ventilation) or they can help facilitate certain activities within a building (lighting, plug loads, elevators and escalators).

Understanding how buildings use energy for different end uses can help industry professionals, policymakers and researchers develop strategies to implement energy efficiency, which is a critical component to meeting our overall climate commitments.

The next figure expands on-site energy end uses by showing each property sector as a percentage of the total square footage of NYC’s large buildings. This gives a better indication of how each particular end use contributes to the amount of energy used in large buildings citywide. Multifamily buildings offer the biggest opportunity to reduce total building energy, since they make up 56 percent of square footage in large buildings citywide.