Segmenting Chicago Multifamily Housing to Improve Energy Efficiency Programs

Efforts to mitigate climate change in the United States must focus on buildings, which use the most energy and produce the most carbon emissions of any sector, including transportation. In particular, multifamily buildings, defined in this report as residential buildings with two or more units, need attention. Approximately 25 percent of U.S. households reside in a multifamily building. Utility- and government-run efficiency programs have had limited success serving this sector. As a result, well over 16 million households pay more to heat and cool their homes than necessary.

Improving the efficiency of multifamily housing requires policymakers to understand the characteristics of the market. Elevate Energy constructed a database of 143,000 Chicago multifamily buildings and segmented them based on age, size, and other traits in order to better understand the Chicago multifamily sector.