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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 26/09/2026

Did you know that just 7 data centers in Chicago emit several times more than all of our huge, historic, museums, combined? And these probably aren't all the data centers in city limits!

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 25/09/2026

Did you know 7 data centers emit 8x as much as 7 Chicago museums? You can find this out on our new property types page, with high level stats on large Chicago buildings by type! Unsurprsingly, multifamily buildings are 30.8% of benchmarked emissions, but 7 data centers are 4.2% of emissions!

The Electrify Chicago property types homepage showing multifamily buildings with 1.9 million tons of CO2 emitted and 30.8% of total emissions, then K-12 buildings with 6.4% of total emissions and office buildings with 20.2% emissions and college with 4.7%

Lower down on the page showing data centers with 4.2% of total benchmarked emissions (marked #7 highest) and movie theaters with 0.1% and museums with 0.6% and financial office buildings with 0.7%

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 28/05/2026

We're always looking to make it easier for folks to identify buildings that they might already be familiar with, and we realized a few iconic Chicago buildings didn't have images! Are you surprised seeing the grades for any of these buildings?

The Soldier field Electrify Chicago page with overlay text "More Imagery for Iconic Chicago Buildings! Do any of their grades surprise you?" showing a C overall from 2015 and a D in Emission Intensity, A in Energy Mix, and A in Consistent Reporting

The United Center Electrify Chicago page, showing it hasn't reported since 2019, with an overall C grade and an F in Emissions Intensity, A in Energy Mix, and C in consistent reporting

The Richard J. Daley Center Electrify Chicago page, showing an overall C, D in emissions intensity, B in energy mix, and A in consistent reporting

The Electrify Chicago page for lake point tower condo association, showing an overall B grade with a B for emissions intensity, A for energy mix, and A for consistent reporting

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 13/05/2026

Have you heard that electric heating can't work in Chicago? Big buildings like Loyola's San Francisco Hall, home to their School of Environmental Sustainability, actually run off of all-electric geothermal heat pump systems - and you can now find them highlighted on Electrify Chicago! 🧵

A screenshot of Loyola's San Francisco Hall, showing a "Geothermal Heat Pump" green pill under notable features, with text on top saying "New Feature: Highlighting Geothermal Heat Pump Buildings!"

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 07/03/2026

Even more property type stats and graphs are now available on Electrify Chicago! Curious how much gas or electricity properties of a certain type use, and how it's changed over time? We've got the numbers! You can start with Chicago's museums at electrifychicago.net/property-typ...

An Electrify Chicago page for Museum Buildings, showing 7 buildings with 35,576 tons of emissions, and a lot more stats, with text over that says "New Feature - More Property Type Stats & Graphs!"

The Electrify Chicago Data Centers page showing 7 buildings with 273,034 tons of emissions and an 83.6 avg GHG intensity, with 99% electric energy mix and 503.8 million kWh of energy used

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 24/02/2026

Data Centers in Chicago use a LOT of electricity, and we're adding some stats to show you just how much - in this case, 7 data centers use as much energy as 480 median large Chicago buildings! More data coming soon to electrifychicago.net/property-typ...

An Electrify Chicago Data Centers page showing 7 buildings in the data using 1.7 billion kBTU of energy, equivalent to 480 median buildings citywide

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 23/02/2026

You can now find building owners on the ElectrifyChicago.net homepage! We want to make it really quick and easy for folks to see Chicago's biggest property owners and their emissions - did any of these surprise you? 👀

A screenshot of Electrify Chicago showing Building Owners on the homepage, including CPS with 452 buildings, University of Chicago with 28 buildings, and Illinois Tech with 19

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 21/02/2026

We're cooking up something new - a property type overview page! We want to make it easier to see stats among properties of the same type, and to see some quick images of what those buildings look like. Is there anything you'd like to see? 👀

A Multifamily Housing property type page, showing 1,710 buildings with a 1.9 million tons of total emissions, and an avg ghg intensity of 5.9

A Data Centers property type page, showing 7 buildings, with 273k total emissions and 83.6 avg GHG intensity

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 16/12/2025

We were excited to see energy benchmarking mentioned in the Chicago Central Area Plan 2045, and to see that they want to expand it to more buildings! Do you know any buildings that would start reporting with this new threshold?

Screenshot showing a page from the Chicago Central Area Plan, 2045, with a highlighted section under "Accelerate building decarbonization" that says "Expand the city's energy benchmarking program for buildings by reducing the threshold for required energy reports from 50,000-square-foot buildings to 25,000-square-foot buildings."

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 22/11/2025

We've made some updates to our fines breakdown, so you can see how many big Chicago buildings didn't report in each year! Did you know in 2019, it was over one thousand?! 🤯 Check out the info at electrifychicago.net/fines-breakdown, and let us know if you have more suggestions or data questions!

Title "New Analysis - Track Non-Reporting Buildings By Year!" with a table underneath labelled "Buildings Out of Compliance Per Year & Predicted Fines", with fines ranging from 3.8 - 9.9 million per year, from 420 - 1,080 non-reporting buildings, with a total of 3,867 incidents of non-compliance and $35.5 million in predicted fines

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 10/11/2025

Chicago's largest buildings are breaking emissions laws, costing the city nearly $35 million in uncollected fines! Buildings over 50,000 sqft are required to report their emissions, but thousands haven't, and have faced none of the penalties. Contact your alder to help at electrifychicago.net/act

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 15/10/2025

We keep working on new tools to understand Chicago's buildings, and this past week, a contributor added stats to our ward pages! Have you wondered how many buildings are in your ward, and if their better than average? Find you ward at electrifychicago.net/wards

The Electrify Chicago page for Ward 42, showing that it has 370 tagged buildings, with 1.2 million in total emissions

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 03/10/2025

Some universities and agencies own dozens of buildings in Chicago, so we made it easier to understand these large owners and their emissions! Now you can see a breakdown of the grades their buildings get, the total square footage of their buildings, and a whole lot more.

"New Feature - Building Owner Stats! We've got top-level stats for all our building owners - including a breakdown of grades, total emissions, and more! " Overlayed on a screenshot of Illinois Tech, showing 19 tagged buildings with 132k tons CO2e total emissions, and an average GHG intensity of 55.5 kg CO2e/sqft, 9x the median building

"Did you see anything that surprised you about a building owner?" Overlayed over a screenshot of DePaul's building owner page, showing 25 tagged buildings and 36k total emissions, with avg GHG intensity of 10.2 kg CO2e/sqft, 2x the median building

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 10/09/2025

Good News - Electrify Chicago is doing great in search! If you're interested in a building's emissions, we're going to come up. Bad News - Google is stealing our work for their AI summary 🫠 Support us by sharing our site directly to help push back against our robot overlords 🤖

A Google screenshot showing a search for "Marina Towers Emissions" with an AI overview showing stats that we render

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 02/09/2025

A week ago, we updated our site to show you the latest building data, highlighting some brand new buildings. Now, we've added imagery, so you can recognize these properties and see what they look like! What buildings do you find most interesting or surprising?

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 27/08/2025

Ever wonder which of Chicago's iconic are already all-electric? Now you can find out at a glance! We've added new badges and a lightning icon to highlight all 135 all-electric buildings on Electrify Chicago. Are there any buildings you didn't know were all electric?

Electrify Chicago: New Feature - Badges for All Electric Buildings! Find the buildings that are already gas-free, from individual building pages or building tables! There's 135 all-electric buildings already! Find them at electrifychicago.net

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 24/08/2025

Click to reveal the answer below. Did you get it right?!

Welcome to the Mondadnock Building, which we gave an A grade! The Mondadnock was one of the first skyscrapers and six-foot thick brick walls, which are load-bearing! This helps it be very efficient, and have one of the lowest emissions intensities in the whole city! At the bottom right is a report card that says Overall Grade A, Emissions Intensity (50%) A, Energy Mix (40%) - C, and Consistent Reporting (10%) A

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 24/08/2025

We've been looking at Chicago's building data for a while, and some buildings surprise you - what do you think this building's grade is?! Check our reply to check your answer, and leave a comment if you guessed right, or were totally surprised!

A photo of a 16 story brick building in downtown Chicago, with text that says Guess This Building's Energy Grade! Your clues: Office building, built in 1890, 496,000 sqft, brick costruction. Do you think it got an A, B, C, D, or F? Swipe to check your answer

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 23/08/2025

But in more positive news, our brand new citywide stats page (electrifychicago.net/citywide-stats) shows that the overall set of benchmarked buildings has been improving - with slow but noticeable downward trends in emissions, emissions intensity, and electricity use, and fluctuating gas use.

Graphs of Median GHG Intensity and Median GHG Emissions showing them going slowly down, with the former going from 8.3 to 6.5 from 2016 to 2023, while the latter is going from 1,099 tons to 841 tons in the same period

Graphs of Median Electricity Use and Median Fossil Gas use showing them going slowly down, with the former going from 4 million kWh to 3.6 million kWh from 2016 to 2023, while the latter is more wavy, with 5.5 million therms in 2016 and 2023, but low points in 2021 and a high point in 2019

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 23/08/2025

We also still have several building owners who have now been in violation for several years, like @illinoistech.bsky.social, who haven't reported data for the past two years.

A screenshot of Herman Hall on Electrify Chicago showing a warning of out of date data, and that top-level stats are from 2021, the last full year of reporting

A screenshot of Stuart Building on Electrify Chicago showing a warning of out of date data, and that top-level stats are from 2021, the last full year of reporting

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 23/08/2025

We've got the scoop on Chicago's buildings! We've updated Electrify Chicago with the city's latest 2023 data, including analysis of new buildings, the buildings that fell out of compliance, and a new citywide stats page. 🚨 But there's a problem - 288 buildings stopped reporting this year! 🧵

The Electrify Chicago Latest Updates page, showing that there are 61 new buildings, but 288 stopped reporting, with a net change of -227 buildings, with 2,261 consistent reporters

The new Electrify Chicago citywide stats page, showing the first graph, of Median GHG intensity, which has been gently trending downwards, from 8.3 in 2016 to 6.2 in 2023

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 06/08/2025

New feature alert! Have you ever wanted to print off a particular building, to share it out in the real world? We've got a new print button and print styling just for you! We streamlined and condensed the data, and added a QR code, so anyone seeing your printed page can see the full data

A close up of an Electrify Chicago page with the a print icon highlighted

A print preview window showing Crown Hall, with a easy to read layout with the report card on the right, and prominent stat tiles, and a QR code on the bottom right

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 08/06/2025

We were out at EcoFest today, telling folks how they can learn about how much energy Chicago's biggest buildings use, and how much they emit!

A number of flyers on a table, including an Electrify Chicago flyer saying "How Much Does Your Building Pollute?"

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 07/06/2025

Exciting update! Electrify Chicago has a brand new wards page, letting you easily find your what buildings any alderperson might represent, and each building's page will now show the ward they're located in. Give it a try! electrifychicago.net/wards

The Electrify Chicago Wards page, showing a list of links for each of Chicago's 50 wards

A page for Ward 47, showing the largest buildings in the data in the ward, starting with Lane Tech High School, then the Bradley Business Center, 5040 N Broadway, Warner Brothers, and Lake View High School

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 04/04/2025

Need more tools to look for buildings on Electrify Chicago? A new contributor (thanks Ted!) just added the ability to sort GHG Intensity and total emissions on our search page, so you can do things like find the most efficient big hotels in Chicago! Check it out at: electrifychicago.net/search

The Electrify Chicago search page, with a mouse cursor over the GHG intensity column header

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 12/03/2025

We've got a huge feature update - building grades! Now on electrifychicago.net you can see at a glance how a building stacks up to others. How does your building stack up?

The Electrify Chicago homepage showing Chicago's most emissions intense buildings and some featured Chicago buildings, with Crown Hall getting an F, Digital Lakeside getting a C, and more.

Electrify Chicago's Marina Towers page, showing it has an overall A, a B under emissions intensity, an A under electricity mix, and an A for consistent reporting.

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 03/03/2025

Thanks to a first-time contributor, we added some more imagery! There's now images for over a dozen significant buildings, including The Rookery, Thompson Center, Adler Planetarium, and more! Check out their emissions at: electrifychicago.net/building/the... electrifychicago.net/building/tho...

The Electrify Chicago page for The Rookery Building showing it is 100% electric and has had declining emissions and GHG intensity in the years reported

The Electrify Chicago page for The Thompson Center showing it is 65% electric 35% fossil gas powered, and had a GHG intensity of 10.8 kg CO2e/sqft in 2021 (the last year reported) and total emissions of 12,908.9 tons CO2e.

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 19/02/2025

Want the data on data centers? We've got you covered! Learn about five large data centers in Chicago, and how they consume energy: electrifychicago.net/search?q=&ty...

The Electrify Chicago page for CoreSite, a data center at 427 S LaSalle St that has a GHG intensity of 114.8 kg CO2e/sqft, #1 highest in Chicago, and total emissions of 18,365 tons CO2e, #19 highest in Chicago, and 21 times the median building.

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 15/02/2025

Happy Saturday! On our redesigned homepage we feature a 130 year old downtown office building that, despite its age, is one of the top 10 lowest emissions intensity office buildings in Chicago! Learn more about the Monadnock building, and find others like it: electrifychicago.net/building/the...

The Electrify Chicago page for the Monadnock building a very thick brick skyscraper, showing it has very low GHG intensity at 2.7 kg CO2e/sqft, half the median Chicago building

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 15/02/2025

We can help you learn about all sorts of buildings, from big apartments to power hungry data centers! We're excited to see what you can find in this amazing data set. electrifychicago.net/building/cor...

The Electrify Chicago page for CoreSite, a data center with 114.8 kg CO2e/sqft GHG intensity and total emissiosn of 18,365 tons, #19 highest in Chicago

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Electrify Chicago @electrifychicago.net · 15/02/2025

👋 Oh hi! We're Electrify Chicago - a volunteer run, open-source project that analyses city data, so you can learn how Chicago buildings use energy and how much they emit as a result. Want to find Chicago's dirtiest building or just learn about your office? Go to ElectrifyChicago.net!

The Electrify Chicago homepage showing a search prominently at the top and a first row of Chicago's Most Emissions Intense Buildings, and a second row of Featured Chicago buildings.

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