OUR MISSION: To provide our customers with high-quality, efficient and reliable water, power and sewer services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
525 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
T 415.554.0725
[email protected]
DATE: April 24, 2023
TO: Newsha K. Ajami, President
Sophie Maxwell, Vice President
Tim Paulson, Commissioner
Anthony Rivera, Commissioner
Kate H. Stacy, Commissioner
THROUGH: Dennis J, Herrera, General Manager
Barbara Hale, Assistant General Manager, Power
Catherine Spaulding, Deputy Manager, Power
FROM: Jamie Seidel
Manager, Distributed Energy Resources Projects, Power
SUBJECT: 2021 Municipal Energy Benchmarking Report
The Power Enterprise is pleased to present the 2021 E nergy Benchma rking Report.
In 2011, the San Francisco Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance Ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Edwin M. Lee requiring owners of non- residential buildings over 10,000 square feet to annually benchmark and disclose buildin g energy performance. Leading by example, the City and County of San Francisco soon began to benchmark its municipal building energy use, becoming the first city on the W est Coast to annually measure and publish building performance data.
The 2021 reporting year continues to util ize the web- based interactive dashboard that has been used since the 2019 report to pr esent the annual municipal energy use data. The dashboard provides high level trends and portfolio level summaries of energy use by fuel type , building type, and floor area, as well as emissions by fuel type. Additionally, building usage data is available at the individual building level, building type, or by City and County of San Francisco department.
San Francisco’s building energy use recovered in 2021 followi ng the steep declines in 2020 brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to the City’s building portfolio energy use intensity increasing year-over-year by 5.4% and carbon intensity increas ing year-over-year by 25.3%. These increases are
high due to the e xceptional circumstances of the pandemic – when comparing year 2021 to pre-pandemic year 2019, the energy use intensity decreased in 2021 by 11.9% and the carbon intensity decreased by 9.71%.
For more analysis and detailed in formation regarding the 2021 Municipal Energy Benchmarking Report , please visit this link: Municipal Buildings Energy Benchmarking | SFPUC.
Power BI Desktop
Overview
In 2011, the San Francisco Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance Ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Edwin M. Lee, which requires owners of non-residential buildings over 10,000 square feet to annually benchmark and disclose building energy performance. Leading by example, the City and County of San Francisco soon began to benchmark its municipal building energy use, becoming the first city on the West Coast to annually measure and publish building performance data.
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) publishes building performance data in an interactive dashboard.
This document is a static copy. By hovering over and clicking any of the icons, visitors navigate the dashboard to explore data and interact with visualizations. For the best experience, visit sfpuc.org to interact with charts and tables in this report.
Portfolio
Summary
Trends
Building Level
Data
Data Sources
and Assumptions
Acknowledgements
Energy Programs
and Projects
On behalf of City agencies, the SFPUC continues to benchmark approximately 500 municipal buildings annually. In collaboration with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment, SFPUC releases this dashboard to provide San Francisco’s agencies and the general public a better understanding of how municipal facilities perform and to identify buildings that would benefit from cost-effective energy efficiency investments.
This dashboard does not include energy usage information for non-municipal buildings, nor does it include data on the nearly 400,000 customers enrolled with the SFPUC’s CleanPowerSF program. Port of San Francisco and Housing Authority properties are also omitted from this particular report but benchmark their energy use independently in accordance with the Existing Building Energy Performance Ordinance.
For information about how municipal buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions compare to emissions from other sectors in San Francisco, check out San Francisco’s Climate Storyboard.
Starting in reporting year 2019, the SFPUC began publishing building performance data in this interactive dashboard.
Data from 2011 to 2019 can be found in static reports: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011. 04/28/2023Last Updated:
-
Power BI Desktop
The graph above depicts the EUI and carbon intensity for municipal buildings where complete benchmarking data is available, but excludes buildings for which we only have partial data. It also does not include San Francisco International Airport (SFO), as SFO is such a large gas and electricity user that its inclusion would obscure the change in EUI and carbon intensity across all other municipal facilities. Water and wastewater treatment facilities are also excluded because their respective EUIs are disproportionate to square footage (the more appropriate measurement of EUI for this particular subset of facilities should be based on energy per volume of water processed, which is not readily available to SFPUC Power).
Following the steep decline in energy use in calendar year 2020 brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco’s building portfolio showed varying rates of recovery in many sectors over the following year. For 2021, year-over-year EUI increased by 5.4% and carbon intensity increased by 25.3%. The latter was due to a significant rise in steam use together with a modest increase in gas use, with convention centers and auditoriums attributing for the majority of increase in steam. The airport’s EUI increased by 0.4% and its carbon intensity by 1.56%, as the Airport Commission and its tenants exhibited a small uptick in energy usage compared to 2020.
Overall, 2021 was another atypical year for municipal energy use. Prior to the pandemic, year-over-year changes in energy demand were more heavily influenced by factors such as weather and normal variations in building operations or demands. While those did play a role, the stagnation and/or recovery rate in various sectors were the primary drivers in changes observed from 2020 to 2021. A further result of these drivers is that recent year-over-year comparisons are less meaningful in the context of energy efficiency and will continue to be irregular until a consistent baseline is re-established. Although energy use is anticipated to continue to rise as the City recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the City remains committed to reducing the energy intensity and carbon impact of its buildings. For more information on efforts to reduce the energy and carbon intensity of municipal facilities, visit the Energy Programs and Projects page online.
Carbon and Energy Use Intensity Over Time
For each municipal facility, the SFPUC measures and compares on-site annual energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over time, on a square foot basis. (Expressed as energy use intensity (EUI) and carbon intensity, respectively). For 2021, San Francisco provides complete results for 485 City Facilities, including partial information for 5 facilities.
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
79.5 60.2
82.1 57.2
64.5 68.468.1
67.3 73.175.2
67.066.3
78.8 5.7
4.0 6.0
3.2 3.8
4.4 4.9
4.3 5.3
4.1 4.2 4.3
5.6 Trends
Carbon Intensity
(lbsCO2e/sq.ft.)
EUI
(kBtu/sq.ft.)
Power BI Desktop
Energy Use by Fuel Type
Three sources of energy are used to power municipal buildings: Electricity, Natural Gas, and District Steam. Every year there are certain buildings not fully benchmarked due to insufficient information. Energy usage from these buildings is not included in the overall figures, trends, and summary charts below, but is visible on the Building-Level Data page online.
Emissions by Fuel Type
All facilities receive 100% greenhouse gas (GHG)-free electricity from SFPUC through the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System. As a result, electricity is entirely emissions-free while natural gas use continues to drive and represent the largest share of municipal building GHG emissions.
94%
6%
Natural Gas
Steam
51%47%
2%
ElectricityNatural Gas
Steam
Portfolio Summary
4.01bn
kBtu
2021
2021
106,204
metric tons CO2e
2018
2019
2020
2021
Power BI Desktop
33%
22%
Parking Garages 11%
Offices 6%
5%
Hospitals 4%
4%
Public Safety 4%
Museums and Art 3%
Performance Halls 2%
Airport
Education
Service, Repair, and Storage
Convention Center
Energy Use by Building
A building’s size does not always dictate its energy use and some buildings consume energy out of proportion to their size due to their operating hours or energy use intensity. For example, hospitals represent a small percentage of benchmarked square footage but consume a significant percentage of energy due to their continuous operating hours and high energy use intensity.
Floor Area by Building
The following depicts a summary of floor area by building category. Every year there are certain buildings not fully benchmarked due to insufficient information. Energy usage from these buildings is not included in the overall figures, trends, and summary charts below, but is visible on the Building-Level Data page online. 44%
13%Education 8%
Offices 6%
6%
5%
Museums and Art 4%
Public Safety 4%
Recreation Facilities 2%Parking Garages 1%
Airport
Hospitals
Water and Wastewater Treat…
Service, Repair, and Storage
49.7M
square feet
4.01bn
kBtu
2021
2021
Portfolio Summary (Cont'd)
2018
2019
2020
2021
Power BI Desktop
Building-Level Details are Presented in an Interactive Table The online report provides considerably more detail, allowing review of data about individual buildings or filtering by building type or department. For each building, key data points characterize energy performance in a given calendar year, and the dashboard provides summary statistics for groups of buildings.
A guide to using the interactive online table is provided below.
Visit Us Online for Building-Level Details
Use this search
box to type in
and filter by a
specific building
name. The
adjacent eraser
icon will clear
your selection.
Click on drop down arrows
to filter by property type or
department. The below
measures and table will
react. The adjacent eraser
icon will clear your
selection and the table
below will reset.
Six key measures
that are dynamic
according to drop
down boxes above
or selection in table
below.
Click to download
comprehensive dataset
hosted on SF Open Data
Portal.
Hover over a row to reveal
a tooltip that displays more
building details.
Click anywhere to select a row highlighting
building information. The above six key
measures will react.
Hover over each field to
reveal a description for
each column. Click on the
down arrow available in
each column to sort the
data.
Power BI Desktop
Data Sources and Assumptions
Year Fuel Type Units Source
Emissions
Factor
2017 Steam lbs CO2e/lbs steam Clearway Community Energy; obtained annually by request 0.20 2018 Steam lbs CO2e/lbs steam Clearway Community Energy; obtained annually by request 0.20 2019 Steam lbs CO2e/lbs steam Clearway Community Energy; obtained annually by request 0.20 2020 Steam lbs CO2e/lbs steam Clearway Community Energy; obtained annually by request 0.22 2021 Steam lbs CO2e/lbs steam Cordia Energy; obtained annually by request 0.22 Energy use data: Electricity, natural gas, and steam usage data is stored in the SFPUC’s energy accounting database, EnergyCAP, where billing is managed by the SFPUC. Where the site pays Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) or another vendor directly for natural gas, meter information is provided by the individual department to the SFPUC. Starting in 2019, data calendarization was used to extract annual data from monthly utility bills.
Building data: Square footage, year built, operating hours, and other facility data is used to reliably benchmark a building. As part of the initial report (2011), the SFPUC and other City departments engaged in a thorough verification process to review and confirm available building and operations data, as well as supply additional detail.
Additional verification occurs as new facilities are added to the portfolio, buildings change, or vacancies are reported. In some cases, a building comprises more than one space type. Where this would affect its Energy Star score, multiple space types were created for the facility within EPA’s Portfolio Manager to correctly generate an EUI and/or Energy Star score. (See below for additional information.) Civic Center steam loop: Two historic Civic Center buildings, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and the Department of Public Health Central Office, obtain steam through the Civic Center steam loop but do not have individual steam meters to accurately gauge their consumption. Consequently, the unmetered portion of Civic Center steam use is apportioned between these two buildings based on their square footage, and therefore actual energy consumption within these buildings is less than reported.
Greenhouse Gas Emission Factors: Below is a table of emission factor magnitude and data sources updated annually.
All municipal buildings included in this report receive 100% GHG-free electricity from the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System.
By contrast, each therm of natural gas has an annual emissions of 11.70 lbs CO2e/therm, and emissions intensity of steam varies from year-to-year, summarized below.
Definitions
Energy Star Score: EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager is the most widely utilized tool for building energy benchmarking. EPA's Energy Star score gauges a building’s energy performance as compared to similar buildings nationwide. Because the scale is geared to commercial buildings, only municipal facilities that fall in specific, eligible building categories can obtain a 1-100 score. A score of 50 represents the national median. To put this in perspective, a building with a score of 76 would indicate that it is performing better than 75% of other buildings in the same category.
Energy Use Intensity: The City’s municipal buildings are benchmarked based on on-site Energy Use Intensity (EUI), a measure of annual energy use per square foot of building area. In this dashboard, water treatment and wastewater facilities EUI is calculated the same as for all other facilities (energy use per square foot) and not as energy use per volume of water processed. The area of exterior parking lots is not included in the EUI for the adjacent buildings, but buildings that function primarily as parking garages have their full square footages factored into their EUI calculation.
Uncertainties and Exceptions
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this dashboard is complete, accurate, and up-to-date, irreconcilable meter data and/or changes in a building’s occupancy or primary use may skew their respective results.
Power BI Desktop
Energy Efficiency
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has offered energy efficiency services to City Department customers for the past three decades. One program managed by Power Enterprise’s Distributed Energy Resources Projects (DERP) Group is the Civic Center Sustainable District Program. This program offers energy efficiency services including lighting and HVAC retrofits, building retro-commissioning, and LEED certification services to the City’s building portfolio in the historic Civic Center: City Hall, War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, Asian Art Museum, Main Library, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, and Department of Public Health.
Renewable Energy
The City and County of San Francisco is strongly committed to expanding the local use of renewable energy, including solar photovoltaics (PV). The SFPUC DERP Group offers turnkey design and construction services to City Departments to install solar PV. In 2021, the SFPUC distributed power from 25 PV facilities with a total capacity of 8,290 kW.
Energy Programs and Projects
The SFPUC installed a 98.8 kW PV array
on the roof at Visitation Valley Middle
School. The system will produce
roughly 25% of the school’s electricity
needs. This is the 7th PV system
completed in partnership between the
SFPUC and the San Francisco Unified
School District.
Climate Policy Promotes Electrification
In response to global climate change, San Francisco has adopted the ambitious goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions citywide by 2040 (San Francisco Environment Code Chapter 9, updated 2021). The path to achieving these goals were set forth in San Francisco’s 2021 Climate Action Plan.
In support of these climate goals, Power Enterprise’s DERP Group has implemented fuel switching pilot projects to facilitate the transition from natural gas-reliant building heating systems to all electric. These new systems will be powered by SFPUC’s greenhouse gas free Hetch Hetchy hydroelectricity. 2021 Highlights
Notable projects in 2021 included:
Lighting Upgrades at City Hall
With SFPUC funding, metal halide lights illuminating City Hall’s interior dome and rotunda were upgraded to high-efficiency color-changing LEDs. New lighting controls adjust lighting scenes to accent the aesthetic and themes of major events such as the 4th of July and Pride. Design, project management, and construction services were funded through the SFPUC Civic Center Sustainable District Program.
Solar PV at Visitation Valley Middle School
Power BI Desktop
Acknowledgements
Gathering the information necessary to complete this benchmarking report involved the time and expertise of numerous people at a number of different departments and agencies. Many thanks to all those whose hard work and continued care went into ensuring that this report is as complete and accurate as possible.
SFPUC Project Team:
Charlotte Coquia-Elmore
Dan Heffernan
Eang Taing
Jamie Seidel
Matthew Greco
Additional SFPUC Staff:
Angie Lee
Benito Capuyan
Crystal Chen
Hina Dave
Jackie Randazzo
Sachiko Tanikawa
SF Environment Project Team:
Barry Hooper
Joyce Oloresisimo-Arpon
Extra-Departmental Contacts:
Amy Chan (SFUSD)
Amy Nagengast (SFO)
Courtney Carroux (SFO)