Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290)

How does Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290) compare with other multifamily housing buildings in California?

The latest disclosures cover 10,630 multifamily housing buildings in California, out of 40,029 buildings citywide. Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290)'s ENERGY STAR score of 94 compares with an average of 82 across the 9,612 that report a score; it scores higher than 55% of them and lower than 42%. Its site EUI of 41.4 kBtu/ft² is about 20% above the average of 34.4 kBtu/ft² — it uses more energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 2.3 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 10% above the group average of 2.1 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 150,207 sq ft, it is roughly in line with the average floor area of 150,919 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1964, 24 years earlier than the group's average year built (1988). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 59,945 multifamily housing buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 70 and a site EUI of 59.0 kBtu/ft².

How has Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290)'s energy performance changed over time?

BuildingCensus holds 6 California disclosures for Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290), covering report years 2019–2024. Its ENERGY STAR score went from 89 in 2019 to 94 in 2024 (+5 points). Site EUI moved from 42.8 kBtu/ft² (2019) to 41.4 kBtu/ft² (2024), a 3% decrease. Reported emissions went from 382 tCO₂e to 347 tCO₂e over the same span (down 9%).

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 94 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 94 means the building performs better than about 94% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 94 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. Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290)'s 41.4 kBtu/ft² across 150,207 sq ft works out to about 6.2 billion Btu (1,822 MWh-equivalent) in 2024. The disclosure also reports 734,992 kWh of electricity and 38,348 therms of natural gas for the year.

Which law requires Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290) to report its energy use?

Walnut Heights Apartments - Essex (Wl290) 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:6780517:2024). 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.