UK new build "best practice building" say about 140 kWh per square meter per year total energy use (including HVAC). 8 square meters per person is packed in desks like a call centre. £0.1 per kWh. 140 * 8 * 0.1 ~ £100 per year per person = $160. Cheaper power costs in US. More extreme temperature differences. Less strict energy conservation codes. All could skew this figure considerably.
Yeah, the AC is about 40kWh/year. Its not doing much for about 3/4 of the year in the UK though. Economies of scale do make a big difference. In a large building with 1000's of peeps air supply fans (fan coil units), chillers and heat rejection would be separate pieces of kit. Heat rejection is generally done by rooftop cooling towers sometimes supplemented by ground sink borehole. Supply air is cooled at the fan coil units, which are supplied by with water cooled by the chillers. There are lots of variations for a system like this but as described above is a pretty typical office building set-up in the UK building industry at the moment.
I wasn't doubting your numbers, I haven't confirmed but you seem to know what you're talking about.
I just had an intuitive problem with the original post's assertion that office-space cooling in permanent structures could be anywhere near as expensive to run as cooling non-permanent structures in a 120 degree desert warzone, serviced by Halliburton contractors.
