Towards a very low-energy building stock: modelling the US commercial building sector to support policy and innovation planning

The origin, structure and continuing development of a model of time-varying energy consumption in the US commercial building stock is described. The model is based on a flexible structure that disaggregates the stock into various categories (e.g. by building type, climate, vintage and life cycle stage) and with attributes assigned to each of these (e.g. floor area and energy-use intensity by fuel type and end use) based on historical data and user-defined scenarios for future projections. In addition to supporting the interactive exploration of building stock dynamics, the model has been used to study the likely outcomes of specific policy and innovation scenarios targeting very low future energy consumption in the building stock. Model use has highlighted the scale of the challenge of meeting targets stated by various government and professional bodies, and the importance of considering both new construction and existing buildings.