Increases in the size of commercial buildings have outpaced increases in the number of those buildings over the past decade, according to EIA’s Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) . EIA’s CBECS is the only nationally representative data collection for building characteristics and energy use in commercial buildings. Information about the commercial building stock in 2012 is now being released, and energy-use information is expected later this year. CBECS estimates that there were 5.6 million commercial buildings in the United States in 2012, totaling 87 billion square feet of floorspace. This level represents a 14% increase in the number of buildings and a 21% increase in floorspace since 2003, the last year for which CBECS results are available. Newer buildings tend to be larger than older […]