Castello Elementary School

How does Castello Elementary School compare with other K-12 school buildings in California?

The latest disclosures cover 2,128 K-12 school buildings in California, out of 40,029 buildings citywide. Castello Elementary School's ENERGY STAR score of 45 compares with an average of 74 across the 2,016 that report a score; it scores higher than 13% of them and lower than 86%. Its site EUI of 34.5 kBtu/ft² is roughly in line with the average of 34.6 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 2.2 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 12% above the group average of 2.0 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 58,362 sq ft, it is about half of the average floor area of 129,123 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 2005, 29 years later than the group's average year built (1976). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 6,548 K-12 school buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 64 and a site EUI of 52.7 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 45 mean?

ENERGY STAR scores run from 1 to 100 and are computed by the EPA's Portfolio Manager as a percentile against similar buildings nationwide, adjusted for climate, size and use: a score of 45 means the building performs better than about 45% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 45 falls in band D — lowest band (1–54). It sits 30 points below 75, the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification. In California, 65% of scored buildings are at 75 or above.

Site energy-use intensity (EUI) is the energy a building uses on site in a year divided by its floor area, in thousand Btu per square foot — lower is more efficient. Castello Elementary School's 34.5 kBtu/ft² across 58,362 sq ft works out to about 2 billion Btu (590 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. The disclosure also reports 521,073 kWh of electricity and 2,362 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Castello Elementary School to report its energy use?

Castello Elementary School reports under AB 802 (Public Resources Code §25402.10), the legal basis of California's Building Energy Benchmarking Program (statewide), which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2024 disclosure (source record california:1256785:2024). AB 802 requires every California commercial building over 50,000 sq ft to report energy use to the CEC annually; the CEC publicly discloses the results statewide.