A holistic life-cycle data analysis approach to bridge the energy performance gap in buildings

Buildings do not operate as initially predicted in their design phase, with a significant gap existing between design intent and actual building performance. The energy performance gap between actual building energy consumption and predicted building energy consumption has been shown to deviate by up to a factor two. Numerous approaches and technologies are currently being implemented to improve building inefficiencies, and such approaches utilise the vast amounts of data currently being produced by buildings. This paper reviews how building performance can be optimised through the utilisation of data analysis techniques on available building data. This paper also outlines a building data analysis methodology that produces accurate building performance to reduce the energy performance gap. This paper is a data analysis paper, focusing on the data produced by buildings throughout all stages of the building life cycle, this paper is not concerned with the embodied energy of construction materials, processes etc.