Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey Letter Report (2010) / Chapter Skim
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With the possibility of additional funding available in the next few years, EIA asked the National Research Council to conduct a comprehensive review to assess how the CBECS and RECS can take advantage of recent developments in survey methods and to ensure the relevance of the data for meeting increased user needs in the next decade and beyond. The panel's charge is to consider possible improvements to data quality, geographic coverage, relevance, and the timeliness of data releases.
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During the second stage of the data collection, the energy suppliers of buildings that were not able to provide adequate information in the first stage are contacted to obtain actual usage and expenditure data from the supplier's records. SAMPLING FRAME There is little comprehensive information about the stock of commercial buildings in the United States, and EIA indicated that the lack of a comprehensive national list of commercial buildings or another suitable source from which to select a sample of buildings to interview is one of the major challenges for the CBECS data collection.
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As an example of such a supplemental source, we recommend exploring the usefulness of local government databases that are available online, such as county property tax databases, some of which include information on square footage and heat source. Two available online databases of which we are aware are those of the Allegheny County Office of Property Assessments in Pennsylvania and of the King County Government in Washington.
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. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA SOURCES In addition to considering existing administrative records as an alternative source for a sampling frame, the panel recommends evaluating these records as potential sources for substantive data that could possibly replace an on-site interview at the building's location or could provide additional data for modeling or to conduct new analyses.
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The overlap will be particularly important with the building audits, as discussed below. Building Audits We understand that EIA has considered involving professional energy auditors to collect building data instead of relying on interviewers, but there has never been sufficient funding to implement this approach (except in the form of a small study in the past that was not conducted in conjunction with any of the CBECS data collections)
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To evaluate the quality of the data obtained from the building interviews, as well as the regression model used to identify out of range responses, the next round of the CBECS should include an energy supplier follow-up for more than just the problem cases currently included. For example, the 2011 CBECS could collect supplier data for a random sample of cases that provided usage and consumption data that were deemed valid during the building interview.
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In addition, EIA staff indicated to the panel that the buildings of interest tend to use a wide range of specialized equipment related to building activity, and respondents' abilities to describe the equipment vary. EIA should evaluate the extent to which the pictures of the buildings and critical equipment, including nameplates, are useful in the data cleaning and editing process (for example, for reconciling ambiguous or questionable entries)
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In other words, it is possible that most of the questions are not "too technical" if posed to the right respondent. Additional activities for which analyzing existing data could identify opportunities for increased efficiency include the handling of partial interviews, both in terms of the field operations and from the perspective of data editing.
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Although collecting this type of data on the web will present some methodological challenges, the panel believes that these challenges can be addressed and that web data collection may also represent some methodological advantages, in addition to the likely cost savings. One possible approach that should be explored is to divide the sample into buildings that can be relatively easily transitioned to a web administration and buildings with more complicated characteristics that may benefit from interviewer administration.
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The additional funding available for the 2011 CBECS represents an opportunity to test various ways of asking questions that EIA has identified as problematic because of their technical nature. For example, different approaches to obtaining the square footage information from respondents can be tested in the form of a split-sample experiment.
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SUMMARY The 2011 CBECS presents an opportunity to conduct research that can guide the redesign of the survey on the basis of empirical data about the most cost effective approach for collecting valid and reliable information about the energy consumption of commercial buildings. This letter 1 Energy Information Administration.
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evaluating the availability and quality of alternative data sources that could assist with sampling frame development and potentially provide substantive data, and (2) developing a strategy for transitioning some of the interviews to a web-based data collection mode.
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