The Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) collects information on the stock of U.S. commercial buildings, their energy-related building characteristics, and their energy consumption and expenditures. Commercial buildings include all buildings in which at least half of the floor space is used for a purpose that is not residential, industrial, or agricultural. The CBECS, a national sample survey, is the only national source of statistical information on both the consumption of energy and energy-related characteristics of commercial buildings. The CBECS is a member of a suite of surveys (along with the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, or RECS, and the Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey, or MECS) conducted by the Energy Consumption Division within the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to measure energy consumption in the United States.
The CBECS was first conducted in 1979 and has been repeated since then in three or four year intervals. The most recently completed round was in conducted in 2003 and included the development of a new frame combining an area-based listing with lists of large buildings and lists of buildings of several specialized types. The next round of data collection is scheduled to begin in late 2007. The CBECS focuses on the commercial sector which includes a vast range of building types— service businesses, such as retail and wholesale stores, hotels and motels, restaurants, and hospitals, as well as certain buildings that would not be considered “commercial” in a traditional economic sense, such as public and private schools, correctional institutions, and religious and fraternal organizations. Excluded from the sector are the goods-producing industries: manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry and fisheries, and construction.
If you are interested in learning more about becoming a field interviewer for the CBECS, please click here and contact the representative in your location.
For more information on the CBECS please see:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cbecs/