Monitoring and modelling the energy efficiency of municipal public buildings-case study in Catalonia

Energy-efficiency benchmarking can be used to monitorchanges in overall efficiency of buildings. Benchmarkingmodels, based on energy-efficiency indicators are valuable tools for both public and private stakeholdersbecause they allow an improvement in the building energy management . For the last decade, some governmentshave used these tools to define their building regulations(M. Santamouris, 2005, W. Chung 2005). This paper tries to goes further, integrating a benchmarking and a modelling process, in the same energy efficiency analysis. The connections between the energy-use intensities(EUIs) and the characteristic building factors are modelled using network techniques. The process is divided in two stages: the data acquisition stage, and the benchmarking and modelling stage.The benchmarking and modelling stage is focused in the adjustment of these EUIs within the climate conditions (with a degree days modified method) and the developmentof a prediction model for calculating the relationship between these climate adjusted EUI and the significant factors of a building. In order to validate this methodology,an application to schools in Catalonia is presented .