Santa Maria

How does Santa Maria compare with other senior living community buildings in California?

The latest disclosures cover 542 senior living community buildings in California, out of 40,029 buildings citywide. Santa Maria's ENERGY STAR score of 93 compares with an average of 81 across the 517 that report a score; it scores higher than 52% of them and lower than 46%. Its site EUI of 23.5 kBtu/ft² is about half of the average of 51.6 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 1.5 kgCO₂e/ft² is about half of the group average of 3.2 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 295,802 sq ft, it is about 184% above the average floor area of 104,319 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 2006, 8 years later than the group's average year built (1998). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 1,181 senior living community buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 71 and a site EUI of 73.6 kBtu/ft².

How has Santa Maria's energy performance changed over time?

BuildingCensus holds 4 California disclosures for Santa Maria, covering report years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024. Its ENERGY STAR score went from 69 in 2019 to 93 in 2024 (+24 points). Site EUI moved from 36.9 kBtu/ft² (2019) to 23.5 kBtu/ft² (2024), a 36% decrease. Reported emissions went from 653 tCO₂e to 443 tCO₂e over the same span (down 32%).

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 93 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 93 means the building performs better than about 93% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 93 falls in band A — high performer (85–100). Scores of 75 or higher meet the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification; certification itself is a separate, verified application that the disclosure does not record. 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. Santa Maria's 23.5 kBtu/ft² across 295,802 sq ft works out to about 7 billion Btu (2,037 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. The disclosure also reports 1,464,754 kWh of electricity and 20,991 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Santa Maria to report its energy use?

Santa Maria 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:6713914:2024). 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.