To create the nonresidential new construction forecasts, the Cost-Effectiveness Explorer team took the following steps:
Calculated statewide annual growth rates by building type from the CEC's projections for annual construction (Table 21, Appendix A of the Building Energy Efficiency Measure Proposal Template), and statewide existing building stock information from NREL and the DOE (End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Methodology and Results of Model Calibration, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification).
Multiplied the respective annual growth rates by the square footage of existing nonresidential building data from NREL for each jurisdiction (Commercial Building Inventory by City and County for the Western U.S.).
Proportioned out the jurisdiction level projections in multi-climate zone jurisdictions in accordance with the existing residential building stock distribution. For information about the Explorer team’s existing residential building methodology, see here.
When users add their own projected square footage assumptions, they are used in place of the projections calculated above.
