ABSTRACT
This chapter presents different approaches for benchmarking building energy performance, and considers energy and indoor climate classification through monitoring. It focuses on the monitoring, standardization, and analysis of primary energy consumption for heating in existing buildings. The energy classification and the certification of buildings require an assessment methodology which can be applied without distinction both to new and existing buildings. The assessment of the energy performance of existing building stocks by means of an asset rating should be carried out on "reference buildings" that represent the typical and average buildings of the stock. In order to carry out an accurate monitoring of cooling energy consumption, direct measurements on individual items of equipment or energy use are preferable instead of overall utility energy bills. The microclimatic quality analysis can be conducted while monitoring the energy consumption for air-conditioning, in order to prove their correlation with the obtained thermal quality level.
