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Existing Commercial Reference Buildings Constructed In or After 1980

The files on this page contain commercial reference building models for existing buildings constructed in or after 1980, organized by building type and location. These U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reference buildings are complete descriptions for whole building energy analysis. You can also return to a summary of building types and climate zones and information about other building vintages.

These files are updated regularly. The files on this page are version 1.3_5.0 and were updated September 27, 2010. You can also view related resources:

• an archive of past reference buildings files
• a ZIP file containing the TMY2 weather data that were used to generate the following reference buildings (ZIP 3.7 MB)
• a document identifying the changes made from the previous version (PDF 67 KB) Download Adobe Reader.
• a summary of the annual energy use per square foot for each building in each climate (PDF 109 KB).

The DOE reference buildings, in ZIP files, are by building type and climate zone. The ZIP files contain the following:

• An EnergyPlus software input file (.idf)
• An html file showing the results from the EnergyPlus simulation (.html)
• For ZIP files by building type, a "scorecard" spreadsheet that summarizes the inputs and results for each location (.xlsx)
• For ZIP files by climate zone, the EnergyPlus TMY2 weather file (.epw).

Reference Buildings by Building Type

In addition to the ZIP file for each building type, you can directly view the "scorecard" spreadsheet that summarizes the inputs and results for each location. This Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is also included in the ZIP file.

Building Type	Version 1.3_5.0 updated 9/27/10
Large office	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
Medium office	(ZIP 1.8 MB)
Small office	(ZIP 1.1 MB)
Warehouse	(ZIP 827 KB)
Stand-alone retail	(ZIP 1.7 MB)
Strip mall	(ZIP 2.1 MB)
Primary school	(ZIP 1.7 MB)
Secondary school	(ZIP 2.2 MB)
Supermarket	(ZIP 1.9 MB)
Quick service restaurant	(ZIP 935 KB)
Full service restaurant	(ZIP 841 KB)
Hospital	(ZIP 2.3 MB)
Outpatient health care	(ZIP 2.9 MB)
Small Hotel	(ZIP 2.7 MB)
Large Hotel	(ZIP 1.7 MB)
Midrise Apartment	(ZIP 1.9 MB)

Reference Buildings by Climate Zone and Representative City

Climate Zone	Version 1.3_5.0 updated 9/27/10
1A Miami, Florida	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
2A Houston, Texas	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
2B Phoenix, Arizona	(ZIP 1.4 MB)
3A Atlanta, Georgia	(ZIP 1.6 MB)
3B Los Angeles, California	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
3B Las Vegas, Nevada	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
3C San Francisco, California	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
4A Baltimore, Maryland	(ZIP 1.6 MB)
4B Albuquerque, New Mexico	(ZIP 1.4 MB)
4C Seattle, Washington	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
5A Chicago, Illinois	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
5B Boulder, Colorado	(ZIP 1.4 MB)
6A Minneapolis, Minnesota	(ZIP 1.5 MB)
6B Helena, Montana	(ZIP 1.4 MB)
7 Duluth, Minnesota	(ZIP 1.4 MB)
8 Fairbanks, Alaska	(ZIP 1.4 MB)

Please send all questions and comments regarding the reference buildings to referencebuildings@nrel.gov.