C. U. Blandford
Data release

Chicago building energy

The data behind Chicago building energy: what the properties Chicago’s Energy Benchmarking Ordinance covers reported for data year 2022, and which of them did not report, placed by building footprint where one matched, and how that reported energy adds up across hexagons and community areas.

Data year 2022·Data release 2026-09-26·CC BY 4.0

By Connor Ulrich Blandford·Published ·Updated

01 Coverage

The 3,613 properties the ordinance covered for data year 2022, whether or not they reported, placed by building footprint where one matched, or else by a checked City coordinate, wherever they could be placed, with their reported energy summed to quarter-mile hexagons and to community areas. Data year 2023 has not yet been reviewed for release.

02 Files

Every file listed in checksums.sha256 for data release 2026-09-26, with its SHA-256 as listed there. Rows count records, not the header line; a file that is not a CSV has no row count.
File Rows Bytes SHA-256
buildings.csv 3,749 792,361 e668fecd75c1a60fe0ee616024585a17fde7df11510667ee6e106a133f039ef8
classes.json — 1,554 c8190b6f8286ca853f5ac46c606ee3f23c9935d8e2eda819529a13bd4e693165
density_ca.csv 77 6,551 2723aafed1d2a6d497309f35dc72c0be86df7e280bddf0e6c1802c6d651c3f51
density_hex.csv 1,319 64,264 9890b6de6eefcac5390db54932f90a71ecc34ac45457d278dcc61fa7a2d4a1d8
dictionary.md — 17,640 e922ba7fa91c8229b1c49ff40c4dbc185103f221b30f7d602f87e27f4c568a35
energy.csv 3,613 760,774 e088c6bdd20fa1606d3339b428e8970d763e711e22fe067f4a036089ab56ccd7
facts.json — 15,417 1dff3e98dd300da9ed2cb14695775152e55f554430dfcb805d973e2bda4bc902
footprint_overrides.csv 16 5,416 8c4e9c0e12b181ddc52ae1fe0202c53933fa4cb7c3a2ae6ffb7df140cdb1c622
match_review.csv 406 67,694 b2c425eb0201d8b1a3aeecfa909a7cb0bd0bffd43cf37992c450061dd8950cba

Every column is defined in the release’s data dictionary ↗.

03 Sources

The sources of data release 2026-09-26 and the date each was pulled, as the release’s facts.json lists them.
Source Pulled Rows last updated
Chicago Energy Benchmarking (City of Chicago data portal, xq83-jr8c)
Chicago Energy Benchmarking - Covered Buildings (City of Chicago data portal, g5i5-yz37)
Boundaries - Community Areas (City of Chicago data portal, igwz-8jzy)
Building Footprints (City of Chicago data portal, syp8-uezg)

04 Limitations

Standing caveat

This shows where Chicago’s large buildings are. The ordinance covers buildings of 50,000 square feet and more — on the City’s own figure, under 1% of the city’s buildings and about a fifth of its building energy. It says nothing about household energy burden, which is where the equity question lives.

Explained on the project page

05 License and citation

Data and documentation are licensed under CC BY 4.0, and the code under MIT. The underlying City of Chicago records remain subject to their publishers’ terms.

Reproduce this
Cite this

Blandford, Connor Ulrich. “Chicago building energy.” Data set, release 2026-09-26. connorblandford.com. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22972208. All releases: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22972207.