The number of non-domestic Building Energy Rating (BER) audits performed in certain months have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For further information please see the SEAI website.
Restaurants and Public Houses used 167 kilowatt hours of electricity per square metre in 2021 compared with 137 kWh per square metre for retail units in 2021. (see Table 5A)
A and B rated buildings used 133 kilowatt hours of electricity per square metre in 2021 compared with 98 kWh per square metre for F and G rated premises. (see Table 5B)
The mean electricity consumption in 2021 for non-residential buildings built during 2005-2021 was 119 kWh per square metre. (see Table 5C)
Mean electricity consumption increased in 2021 compared with 2020 for Community and Day Centres (+8%), Primary Health Care buildings (+7%) and Retail (+2%). (see Table 2A)
Mean electricity consumption decreased in 2021 for Offices (-7%) and Restaurants and Public Houses (-6%). (see Table 2A)
More energy-efficient business premises that were built during 2005 to 2021 had more floor area. A and B rated non-residential buildings had an average of 571 square metres compared with an average of 331 square metres for C rated building and 248 square metres for F and G ratings. (see Table 4C)
| Mean Electricity Consumption | |
| A/B | 68.469 |
| C | 34.523 |
| D | 24.171 |
| E | 19.773 |
| F/G | 19.423 |
| Community/Day Centre | 21.652 |
| Offices | 31.027 |
| Primary Health Care | 20.429 |
| Restaurant/Public House | 35.957 |
| Retail | 32.561 |
| A/B | F/G | |
| Community/Day Centre | 345 | 200 |
| Retail | 377 | 190 |
| Table A Mean Electricity Consumption per square metre by Year and Energy Rating 2021 | |||||
| Mean kilowatt hours per square metre | |||||
| Year | A/B | C | D | E | F/G |
| 2015 | 150 | 147 | 128 | 116 | 121 |
| 2016 | 145 | 147 | 127 | 115 | 119 |
| 2017 | 142 | 144 | 122 | 114 | 117 |
| 2018 | 150 | 144 | 128 | 116 | 116 |
| 2019 | 145 | 136 | 123 | 110 | 112 |
| 2020 | 131 | 126 | 110 | 103 | 101 |
| 2021 | 133 | 124 | 106 | 98 | 98 |
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Statistician's Comment
Commenting on the release Dympna Corry, Statistician in the Environment and Climate Division, said: "This is the first time the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has combined the non-domestic building energy ratings and electricity meter datasets. The analysis examined buildings that had a Building Energy Rating (BER) audit conducted and used electricity as their main space heating fuel. The release complements recent CSO releases combining similar data sets for residential buildings. There is a much greater variety in size and in uses of electricity in non-domestic buildings. The CSO used threshold consumption figures of at least 10 kWh per square metre and less than or equal to 500 kWh per square metre to exclude vacant buildings and those businesses that were using electricity for production purposes such as data centres.
Restaurants and Public Houses used 167 kilowatt hours of electricity per square metre in 2021 compared with 137 kWh per square metre for Retail units. These figures were much higher than the amount of electricity per square metre used by other types of premises in 2021: Offices at 84 kWh/m2; Primary Health Care at 83 kWh/m2; and Community / Day Centre at 81 kWh/m2 (see Table 5A).
Buildings with better energy ratings used more electricity per square metre of floor area. Average electricity consumption per square metre in 2021 varied from: 133 kWh for A and B rated business premises; 124 kWh for C rated business premises; 106 kWh for D rated business premises; 98 kWh for E rated business premises; and 98 kWh per square metre for F and G rated business premises (see Table 5B).
Table 3A shows the average electricity consumption classified by building energy rating and year. Offices were the only type of premises that had reductions in 2021 when compared with 2020 for all energy rating categories. Average electricity consumption in C rated Offices decreased by 8.7% while A and B rated Offices both decreased by 7.8%.
The large variation in electricity consumption per premises is because of the very diverse types of premises included in the analysis e.g. supermarkets, head offices of large multi-national enterprises, newsagents, restaurants etc. The median gives a more stable indication of typical electricity consumption than the mean. For example, the mean kWh for Offices in 2021 was 31,027 (see Table 2A) compared with a median of 11,611 kWh for Offices in 2021 (see Table 2D).
Detailed information on the floor area, type of premises, and electricity consumption per square metre exclusions from the analysis can be found in the Background Notes Chapter of this release."