Despite the growth of public transportation and other transportation alternatives, parking locations remain necessary in much of the nation, to the chagrin of some. Even though parking consultants and design teams have been using sustainable practices for parking structures in recent years, many do not calculate energy use as part of their standard methodology.
Unknown to most, a garage typically uses 15 percent of the energy that the building that it is designed to support uses. Worse, this energy use is often lost in the periphery of energy efficiency efforts. Though, parking structures should not be overlooked because the savings potential is immense. Energy use can be reduced by more than 90 percent over an ASHRAE Standard 90.1 2007 baseline parking structure with typical construction costs.