Updated Bay Area Energy Atlas now online

The Bay Area Energy Atlas — one of the most comprehensive tools of its kind in the country — has just been updated with new features, expanded data, and a more user-friendly interface. 

Developed by the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA in partnership with BayREN, this publicly available resource provides in-depth insight into building energy consumption across the Bay Area.

Originally launched to support local governments with climate action planning, the Energy Atlas is now a powerful tool for a wide range of users — from researchers and policymakers to local advocates and curious community members. It spatially links aggregated energy consumption data from nearly one billion PG&E electricity and natural gas account records to building characteristics and socio-demographic information, offering a robust database for energy analysis.

The Atlas allows users to explore energy consumption through various lenses, answering complex questions with simple map-based visuals and downloadable data.

The tool helps users answer key energy questions, such as:

• Which building types use the most energy per square foot?
• How does energy consumption vary across different communities or over time?
• What trends appear across industries or building vintages?

The latest version of the Atlas brings several major enhancements since its original 2020 release:

• Increased temporal granularity through 2021, now providing monthly, rather than yearly, energy consumption data with 2022 and beyond coming soon.
• New comparison and aggregation tools, allowing users to examine consumption across custom sets of geographies.
• More robust mapping features, including filters by county and city incorporation status.
• Advanced profile views, letting users cross-analyze multiple characteristics at once.
• Improved data accuracy, thanks to more precise processing of utility and parcel data.

Whether crafting policy, researching building trends, or simply exploring how your community uses energy, the Bay Area Energy Atlas is a vital tool to help see the bigger picture.

Explore the newest Energy Atlas.