Mixed building

Khaled Fouda

Design Engineer, LEED AP (BD+C)

Energy Concepts

LEEDuser Basic Member

5 thumbs up

July 15, 2014

Utility rates is a confusing thing for me, I am working on a building that has 9% Retail Area, 7% Church and the rest is a Residential Area. The Retail Area consumes up to 15% of the Energy thou!. Do I come up with a Virtual Energy Rate for the whole building (Using the Area% or Energy Consumption%)? And what type should the church follow when I use the Energy Rates from EIA? Also, do I use the latest Energy Rate for the State (NY April 2014) or the Annual Energy Rate (NY 2013)?

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Marcus Sheffer

LEED Fellow

7group / Energy Opportunities

LEEDuser Expert

4454 thumbs up

Tue, 07/15/2014 - 15:46

The virtual rate is the whole building energy cost per fuel source divided by the whole building energy use for that fuel source. I do not think that the state average rates are broken down by commercial building type. They may be broken down by commercial and residential. You could use either rate. You could also use the specific utility tariff within the software but that can get complicated.