Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944

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Energy & Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

A review of internal and external influencing factors on energy

efficiency design of buildings
Shuo Chen a, Guomin Zhang a,∗, Xiaobo Xia b, Sujeeva Setunge a, Long Shi a,∗
a
Civil and Infrastructure Engineering Discipline, School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
b
Anhui Antai Technology Co., Ltd, High-Tech District, Hefei, Anhui 230088, P.R. China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Three main groups of internal and external influencing factors have been identified through this review,
Received 26 September 2019 including building characteristics, equipment and technologies, and occupant’s behaviors. The consider-
Revised 18 January 2020
ation of only building characteristics cannot guarantee the best energy design of a building, as it could
Accepted 10 March 2020
be dependent on the other two groups of factors. Under some circumstances, some of the energy effi-
Available online 14 March 2020
ciency design solutions did not consider economic or environmental benefits. A wide range of advanced
Keywords: technologies is available for building designers, while challenges still exist from a cost-effectiveness per-
Internal and external influencing factors spective. Many numerical results are hard to validate and confirm the feasibility of those real projects.
Building efficiency design Comparatively, occupant behavior interventions provide an alternative solution for building users to im-
Building energy consumption prove energy efficiency with a relatively low cost and unsophisticated construction procedures. According
Building characteristics to those reviewed studies, the ranges of energy-saving are 10–28% and 43–71% through the smart control
Building service systems
of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and the lighting systems, respectively. The trends
Prediction methods
of key influencing factors on energy efficiency design have slightly changed over the past few decades.
The influencing factors had been mainly investigated in the optimization design and technological up-
dates of buildings previously but now have incorporated the building management of occupant behavior.
Few studies have been carried out to integrate the occupant behavior model into the current energy
simulation software. Thus, two research directions can be concluded after this review. Building efficiency
design needs to be conducted from a systematic view to figure out the underlying issues among different
efficient design measures. Energy performance benchmarking of both occupant behavior interventions
and the technological updates and building service systems are urgently needed as a guided reference to
help the building users to make smart decisions.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The building sector consumes more than 30% of the primary
energy worldwide [1]. It is estimated according to statistical stud-
ies [2, 3] that potential 20–40% energy savings in the building sec-
tor could be achieved if measures can be taken in improving the
building energy efficiency. Thus, the energy efficiency design of
buildings has attracted increasing attention by both academia and
industries, as it is helpful to reduce not only the energy consump-
tion of buildings but also the greenhouse gas emission. Previous
studies on energy efficiency design of buildings could be classified
into three categories, including building characteristics (e.g., build-
ing shape, orientation, insulation, and window), building service
∗
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: kevin.zhang@rmit.edu.au (G. Zhang), long.shi@rmit.ed.au (L.
Shi).
systems (e.g., heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) sys-
tem, hot water supply, lighting system, electrical appliances, and
control management), and the designs under specific weather con-
ditions (e.g., outdoor air temperature, relative humidity, solar radi-
ation, and wind speed).
Addressing the impacts of building characteristics is quite chal-
lenging, which includes a broad range of factors. Efficient designs
of building shape and orientation have been frequently investi-
gated previously [4–19]. Building shape and compactness are usu-
ally chosen as the influencing parameters during the optimum de-
sign of a building. Insulation also plays an important role in build-
ing energy performance, which usually includes the insulation of
the wall, roof, window, and ground [20–46]. Thermal mass insula-
tion and reflective insulation are the two main technologies used
for building insulations [47–57]. Energy-saving potential and eco-
nomic analysis are usually applied in evaluating the feasibility of
the investment of insulation materials. For example, the optimum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.109944
0378-7788/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
insulation thickness has been frequently adopted in minimizing
the life cycle cost by considering the initial cost and the energy-
saving during the service life span [22, 50, 58–62]. Although these
influencing factors have been investigated frequently, an overall
view on those still lacks that can benefit the relevant designs.
Building service systems are the main consumers of energy us-
age in a building. Substantial studies have been conducted to ad-
dress the related energy saving potentials, such as from HVAC, hot
water supply, lighting system, electrical appliances, and smart con-
trol. Based on the literature review, a significant number of ad-
vanced technologies have been applied to enhance the energy ef-
ficiency of HVAC systems [63–79]. For example, studies on verti-
cal close-loop ground-coupled heat pumps indicated a 30–70% re-
duction of annual electricity consumption compared to those air-
to-air heat pump systems. However, the initial cost of installa-
tion of the ground heat exchanger is relatively high [69]. More-
over, smart control of buildings becomes popular under the rapid
development of smart technologies. Smart control of HVAC and
lighting systems shows high potential energy savings with rel-
atively low installation costs [80–89]. Automatic control of hot
water and electrical appliances can save reasonable energy as
well [90, 91]. However, the associated savings could hardly return
the initial investment and the current public awareness is quite
poor [91].
The impacts of weather conditions on building designs are
much reflected by several variables, such as outdoor air tempera-
ture [92,93], relative humidity [92, 94–96], solar radiation [92, 93,
97], and wind speed [92, 93, 95, 98]. Addressing the impacts of
climate change is also a hot topic. Under climate change, decreas-
ing heating demand but high cooling demand have been observed
in many studies [99–102]. Physical models, statistical methods, and
hybrid models are the three main approaches used to evaluate dif-
ferent building technologies and management strategies during the
building design and operation [103].
Determining the influencing impacts of the energy efficiency
design in buildings is quite a broad topic. The influencing impacts
of energy efficiency design in buildings can be found out from the
‘external’ weather conditions to the ‘internal’ control management
and the behavioral interventions. According to the literature re-
view, we identified the most important influencing factors and de-
fined them into three groups: improvement of building character-
istics to reduce the building energy demand (i.e., optimization of
building shape, orientation, and insulation), use of energy-efficient
equipment and technologies (i.e., thermal storage, heating recov-
ery, evaporative cooling, control upgrade), and occupant’s behav-
iors (i.e., access to control and behavioral interventions).
Although numerous studies have been carried out in improv-
ing the energy efficiency of buildings, many challenges are still
showing in addressing the influences of energy efficiency design
of buildings and the related energy impacts. Almost all the build-
ings adopt more than one measures; it still lacks study to iden-
tify the interrelationships between various design measures. Other
challenges may include a high level of accuracy in predicting the
energy benefits and a broader scope of the assessment.
Therefore, the objective of this critical review is to provide
state-of-the-art addressing the internal and external influencing
factors on the energy efficiency design of buildings from the per-
spectives of building characteristics, building service systems, and
weather conditions and prediction methods. The structure of this
review was organized as follows: Section 2 presented the review
methods and materials; Sections 3, 4, and 5 provided an overview
of the existing studies in terms of building characteristics, building
service systems, and weather conditions and prediction methods,
respectively; and Sections 6 and 7 presented discussions and con-
clusions on the existing studies, while the potential future research
directions were also recommended.
2. Review methods and materials
The research methodology for this critical review was com-
posed of six primary steps:
• Database selection: Scopus as a widely adopted database for re-
search materials was used for the search;
• Keywords searching: to narrow down the searching scope and
identify the most relevant articles on the topic, terms such
as ‘building energy consumption’, ‘energy efficiency design’,
‘building energy saving’, and ‘building energy perdition’ were
adopted;
• Articles screening: articles were searched preliminarily through
topic, abstract and keyword by using the keywords above. More
than 10 0 0 papers were identified in Scopus;
• Articles reviewing: these over 10 0 0 articles identified in steps
2 and 3 were primarily reviewed. Several key sub-topics re-
garding the energy efficiency design for energy conservation in
buildings were then assembled based on those reviewed pa-
pers, which were building characteristics, building service sys-
tems, and the designs of weather conditions;
• Keyword searching for sub-topics: various keywords were
adopted to search for sub-topics, for example, ‘building shape’,
‘orientation’, ‘insulation’, and ‘window’ for building characteris-
tics; ‘HVAC system’, ‘hot water supply’, ‘lighting system’, ‘elec-
trical appliances’, and ‘control management’ for building service
systems; ‘air temperature’, ‘humidity’, ‘wind speed’, and ‘solar
radiation’ for the designs of weather conditions; and
• Articles reviewing: after reviewing the articles identified in step
5, 325 articles were selected for the detailed review, together
with another 76 articles chosen from the references of those
325 papers, finally.
Fig. 1 provides an overview on the previous studies of energy
efficiency design in buildings including building characteristics
(e.g., building shape, orientation, insulation, and window), building
service systems (e.g., HVAC system, hot water supply, lighting sys-
tem, electrical appliances, and control management), and the de-
signs of weather conditions. Three groups of the internal and exter-
nal influencing factors were summarized, as shown in Fig. 2: im-
provement of building characteristics to reduce the building energy
demand (i.e., optimization of building shape, orientation, and in-
sulation), use of energy-efficient equipment and technologies (i.e.,
thermal storage, heating recovery, evaporative cooling, control up-
grade), and occupant’s behaviors (i.e., access to control and behav-
ioral interventions). Fig. 3 illustrates the framework of influencing
factors determining the prediction of building energy consumption.
Therefore, the detailed follow-up review was undertaken follow-
ing these identified sub-topics and investigated influencing factors.
The major achievements of each sub-topics were summarized and
concluded. And the strengths and weaknesses of current modeling
methods were pointed out.
3. Building characteristics
Building characteristics are important parts in determining the
energy performance of a building, which contains a wide range
of building and construction-related technologies and activities. In
this review, we have mainly focused on the most popular ones,
including building shape, building orientation, building wall insu-
lation, window glazing, WWR, insulation materials, and optimum
insulation thickness. The detailed review is provided as follows.
3.1. Building shape
Shape factor (SF), compactness factor (CF), and relative com-
pactness (RC) are the three most frequently adopted parameters
 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944 3

Fig. 1. An overview of the energy efficiency design of a building.

Fig. 2. A summary of internal and external influencing factors on building energy consumption.
4 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944

Fig. 3. The framework of influencing factors determining the prediction of building energy consumption.

to address the impacts of building shape on building energy con- shape and the building energy consumption. It was known that the
sumption. SF is defined as the ratio of the building surface area to building shape shows more importance to the buildings when they
the conditioned floor area [4]: are under extreme weather conditions. Increasing SF can increase
Ae the heating demand of a building located in the extremely cold cli-
SF = (1) mates [5, 6]. This is because building envelope could release more
Ac
heat than those received through the solar radiation [7]. Depecker
where Ae is the building surface area (m2 ), and Ac is the condi- et al. [5] investigated 14 case buildings with different combinations
tioned floor area (m2 ). of CF and RC. Based on their numerical analysis, it pointed out that
CF is defined as the ratio of the building surface area to the the energy consumption is inversely proportional to the compact-
conditioned space volume [5]: ness under the severe cold climate conditions. In the hot climatic
Ae conditions with high outdoor temperature and strong solar radia-
CF = (2)
Vc tion, Catalina et al. [8] identified that the SF is a more sensitive
where Vc is the conditioned space volume (m3 ). factor when compared to RC and SF on building thermal demand
RC assesses the impacts of the shape and geometric dimensions based on a testbed of 12 buildings composed by various shapes
on the building energy performance. It is given by Refs. [5, 6]: and glazing areas. Meanwhile, building shape shows less impact
on the energy consumption of a building in non-extreme weather
(Vc /Ae )building areas [4].
RC = (3)
(Vc /Ae )Re f The optimization of building shape has been largely explored
where (Vc /Ae )building shows the compactness of specific shape, and in those previous studies. Various types of building shapes have
(Vc /Ae )Ref shows the compactness of the reference building. been analysed both theoretically and numerically, such as rectan-
The building above shape parameters (Eq. (1) to (3)) have been gular shape, L shape, T shape, cross shape, H shape, U shape, cut
widely studied to address the relationships between the building shape, cubic shape, regular pentagon, symmetrical pentagon, and
 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944 5

other specific shapes [9–12]. For example, Alanzi et al. [9] devel-
oped a model,
  W W R × SHGC 2 
W W R × SHGC D
Et = Ere f × A + B × +C × +
RC RC RC
(4)
where Eref is the building energy use of a reference building with
the same size of the actual building; WWR is the window-to-wall
ratio, SHGC is the solar heat gain coefficient; RC is the relative
compactness; and A, B, C, and D are the coefficients with A = -
0.4525; B= - 0.223; C = 1.755; and D = 0.848 in the study.
The model pointed out that WWR, SHGC, and RC are the pri-
mary determining the total energy usage of a building. Especially
for the buildings with low WWR, the building energy consumption
is inversely proportional to RC.
Tang [10] also took the building length, depth, and width into
consideration, and developed a model to utilize solar radiation,
  
Q (qN + qS )3 × λβ + qH × 3
λβ −2 + (qW + qE ) × 3
λ−2 β
=
Q0 qE + qS + qW + qN + qH
(5)
where Q/Q0 is the relative solar radiation received by the external
surface of the building; qE , qS , qW , qN and qH are the solar radiation
on the east-wall, south-wall, west-wall, north-wall, and roof per
unit area during the daytime; λ is the length/depth ratio of the
building; and β is the height/depth ratio of the building.
This equation can help optimize the building proportions and
minimize the received solar radiation. Using this model, the total
solar radiation on the building will decrease as much as 4% in com-
parison with that on the cubic building.
Due to the complexity of the building, it is still a challenge to
identify the optimal building shape as this is not just an energy-
saving problem. Between 80% and 85% of the total energy con-
sumption during a building’s life cycle occurs in the use or occupa-
tion phase [4]. The related optimization should also determine the
life cycle cost as well as the life cycle environmental impact. How-
ever, the optimization design for one aspect may be not applicable
to the others.
Many numerical modeling studies have been carried out to
identify the optimal building shapes with various perspectives. For
example, Wang et al. [11] applied a multi-objective genetic al- Fig. 4. Shape solutions for a building from a life cycle perspective: (a) regular pen-
tagon, (b) symmetrical pentagon, and (c) oval-shaped solution. Figures were revised
gorithm in the optimization model with two objective functions,
from Refs. [11, 12].
namely, life-cycle cost and life-cycle environmental impacts. They
indicated that the regular pentagon (Fig. 4(a)) is the best option
for the lowest life cycle cost but with the highest life cycle en- the best orientation is to orient buildings 20–30° to the south.
vironmental impact, while a symmetrical pentagon shows an op- Gupta and Ralegaonkar [16] developed a model for the related cal-
posite situation (Fig. 4(b)). Adamski [12] tried to solve the con- culation. They rotated the building from 0° to 180° and applied
troversial problem by examining several shapes through the nu- with different shape values, while the received solar radiation can
merical programs to identify the best shape to minimize both the be estimated. This method can be used to find the optimal orienta-
construction cost and energy consumption. The identified optimal tion angle for the reception of minimum solar radiation in summer
shape (Fig. 4(c)) was composed of the semicircular bounding of the and maximum solar radiation in winter. The authors concluded
northern part of the building and a curve of the southern part. that the optimal orientation was generally when the longest wall
They also compared the building shapes with square and circular sections were oriented toward the north and south. The model is
and found out that buildings on an oval base were better than the shown as follows,
other two. However, it still lacks enough research to validate the
ω2 
optimizing results and confirm the feasibility in real projects. cos i
E =A× (0.834 × H ) × dω (6)
cos θZ
ω1
3.2. Building orientation
where A is the surface area; i is the incidence angle; H is the
The southern orientation is generally advised for the building monthly mean daily global radiation on a horizontal surface; θ Z
located in the northern hemisphere as it can maximize the so- is the zenith angle or polar angle; and dω is the hour angle at
lar heat and radiation. Most of the design guides suggest that the sunrise or sunset.
longest wall sections should face the south [13]. For the best per- Most of the previous studies believed that building shape is the
formance of passive solar applications, Littlefair [14] suggested that most important factor in determining the optimal building orienta-
6 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944

Fig. 5. The relationship between building shape and building orientation. Figures
were revised based on that in Ref. [15].

tion. However, optimal solutions may vary under different circum-

stances. For example, Aksoy and Inalli [15] investigated the rela-
tionship between the optimal building orientation and the build-
ing shape with three SF values (i.e., 2/1, 1/2 and 1/1). According to
the numerical analyses, the building with a square shape (SF=1/1)
was identified to have more advantages than the other two with-
out any insulation (Fig. 5). For the rectangular buildings with the
SF values of 2/1 and 1/2, the optimal solutions are that the az-
imuth angles of the buildings should be 0° and 80°, respectively.
Florides et al. [7] assessed the most energy-efficient orientations
of a square building in terms of minimizing heating demand. The
optimal building orientation is that building facing toward the four
cardinal points. While, for a rectangular building, the best orienta-
tion is that the smallest wall section of the building should face
east to achieve the minimal heating demand.
However, the sole consideration of building shape cannot guar-
antee an optimal orientation of a building as it could be dependent
on many factors. For example, the glazing ratio and the RC have
been found significantly important to the optimization of building
orientation. Some studies even pointed out that the glazing ratio
is a more important parameter than the building shape and the RC
in the determination of the building orientation [17]. To reduce the
heating demand of a building, a large RC and glazing ratio should
be considered [18].
Some studies have focused on other determining factors for
building orientation. Building size was suggested to be considered
in the passive solar design of a residential building [13]. Morrissey
[13]found that a small size building is less sensitive to the changes
in orientation. In other words, higher design standards are easier
to be applied to those smaller buildings across different orienta-
tions, and related costs are also relatively lower. Abanda and Byers
[19] suggested taking the building life cycle into account during
the assessment of the impacts of orientation for those small-scale
buildings. According to their simulations, the most cost-effective
orientation is +180° from the base level, which can contribute to a Fig. 6. Types of insulations: (a) wall insulation placement inside mass; (b) wall in-
sulation placement outside mass; (c) wall insulation placement in the middle; (d)
£878 annual energy saving throughout a 30-year lifespan.
reflective insulation of a suspended ceiling; (e) thermal insulation of a suspended
ceiling; (f) low-E coating window insulation; (g) gas filling window insulation; (h)
3.3. Building insulation concrete foundation interior insulation; (i) concrete foundation exterior insulation.
Figures were revised based on Refs. [25, 36].

Insulation can be placed on a wall, roof, ceiling, window, and

floor of a building (Fig. 6). Generally, wall insulation has been iden-
tified as the most effective insulation placement because due to its
 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944 7

practically, wall insulation is usually placed in the inner side of the

wall or between the wall cavities [25].
Thermal mass insulation and reflective insulation are usually
used in the roof insulation. It was known that the reflective in-
sulation works relatively better under the hot than the cold cli-
mate conditions [26]. For those buildings located in the cold cli-
mate zones, the roof insulation is barely installed but mostly is
placed on the ceiling [25]. It is more crucial to install a higher
level of insulation on the ceiling due to the climate change, which
makes it more challenging in the design of efficient insulation on
the ceiling in the future [27].
The most common insulation technologies for windows are
low-E glazing and gas filling. Most existing studies suggested that
low-E is the most energy-efficient material for window insulation
[28–33]. Glazing can be applied with single, double or triple layers
[34]. A numerical study [35] indicated that double glazing could be
a good option for the residential buildings to release global warm-
ing because it is more sensitive than the other two glazing insula-
tion measures. Gas fill insulation is to displace the air between the
multiple panels in windows. The most frequently applied material
of gas fill is argon [26]. Recently, aerogel is becoming an alterna-
tive material of window insulation as it is derived from the gel
with extremely low density and low thermal conductivity [36, 37].
It is commonly known that the thermal load increases when
windows get bigger, regardless of the window position [38]. Thus,
the optimum solution is to find out a balance between excessive
Inside plaster solar heat and useful daylight. Several numerical and experimental
studies were carried out to analyze different combinations of the
Thermal insulation WWR and the thermal transmittance. The optimum WWR varies
between 10–25% with different types of glazing as well as different
Slab on grade Insulation is extended levels of thermal transmittance [30, 42–46].
about 0.6m below the (h) Insulation of the floor is usually applied on the slab floors be-
slab floor all around the cause the perimeter of the slab is more important than the floor.
exterior perimeter. Especially, the edges of the slab are suggested to be insulated prop-
Concrete wall erly rather than the whole slab area. Two types of floor insulation
Water proofing are normally used, namely between the slab and the interior of
Concrete foundation the footing and over the exterior of the slab [41]. Compared with
the insulation of the wall, roof, and window, the floor insulation
was found less important because the heat transfer between the
air above the ground floor and the air below the ground floor is
Inside plaster
not so significant [39, 40].
Concrete wall
3.3.1. Insulation materials
Slab on grade Thermal mass insulation is the main type of insulation mate-
(i)
rial. The functionality of the thermal mass insulation is considered
mainly depending on the thickness and thermal conductivity of the
Thermal insulation applied materials [50–54]. A great number of studies have been
carried out to test the thermal performance of various insulation
Water proofing
materials in both of commercial and residential buildings, such as
Concrete foundation extruded polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, mineral wool, fiber-
glass, perlite and foamed polyurethane [47–49].
Reflective insulation technologies have also been applied in the
Fig. 6. Continued
roof insulation of a building. The thermal performance of the re-
flective insulation much depends on the thermal resistance of the
air cavities and the thickness of the adopted material [55]. Es-
pecially for the building located in the humid and tropical cli-
large area. However, the option of the inner wall insulation or the mates, it can prevent a large amount of solar heat from being con-
outer wall insulation was a little bit controversial in previous stud- ducted into buildings [56]. The main issue of the reflective insu-
ies. Some studies thought that the inner wall insulation works bet- lation is that it limits the space for the installation of renewable
ter than the outer wall insulation [20–22], while different options technologies such as photovoltaic (PV) on the building roofs [57]. A
are also available [23, 24]. According to the majority of the litera- throughout evaluation of energy performance needs to be carried
ture, the appropriate wall insulation placement was largely deter- out under different energy-efficient measures, which could help
mined by the building type, the weather condition, the building building designers make the right decision among the conflicts.
orientation, the thickness of thermal insulation, and the heating New insulation technologies have also been developed. For ex-
or cooling status [20–24]. Theoretically, wall insulation should be ample, aerogels are one of the most commonly used materials
installed close to the location of the heat inflow or outflow. But under the rapid development of nanotechnologies. They are very
8 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
Fig. 7. Optimum insulation thickness. Figures were revised from Ref. [58].
lightweight and normally formed from silicon gels, which could
provide nearly 40 times the level of insulation compared with the
fiberglass [26]. Vacuum insulated panel is another advanced tech-
nology, which can reduce the heat conduction with its enclosed
airtight around a panel. However, the costs of related manufacture
procedures are very high currently, which hampers its wide adop-
tion in the market [55].
3.3.2. Optimum insulation thickness
The thermal performance of insulation is largely dependent on
the thickness of insulation. However, the rising trend of energy-
saving rate is not always reduced under an increasing thickness
[104–107]. Especially for the building with higher internal heat
gain in warm climates, the related energy-saving is often lower
[57]. Thus, the optimum insulation thickness (Fig. 7) has been
substantially used to assess the feasibility of the investment with
other economical parameters, such as the life cycle cost and the
payback period [50, 58–62], based on the type of heating or cool-
ing resources.
The most commonly used models for the optimum insulation
thickness are the life cycle cost analysis [22, 47, 58, 61, 62, 108–
111] and P1 –P2 method [50, 58, 61]. The life cycle cost analysis is
given by Ref. [58] and the models are shown in Eqs. (7-9),
  LT
1+i 1+i
PW F = 1− (if d = i )
d−i 1+d
LT
PWF = (if d = i )
1+d
where PWF is the present worth factor which represents the net
energy savings, i is the inflation rate, d is the discount rate, and LT
presents the life cycle term.
LT could be assumed to be 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, or 30
years [58]. After calculating the PWF value, the total cost can be
calculated using the cooling and heating degree-days (CDD and
HDD) concept. The optimum insulation thickness for annual (heat-
ing and cooling) energy requirements can be obtained by Ref. [58],
 1 / 2
86400PW F H DDC f /H uη + CDDCe /COP k
xopt =
Cins
where Cins is the cost of insulation material per unit volume; Hu
is the lower heating value of the fuel; η is the efficiency of the
heating system; Cf is the cost of the fuel; Rt, w is the total wall
thermal resistance excluding the insulation layer; x and k are the
thickness and thermal conductivity of insulation material, respec-
tively; Ce is the cost of electricity since the cooling system is sup-
plied with electricity; and COP is the coefficient of performance of
the cooling system, which depends on the operating parameters;
on average, it is assumed to be 2.5 [58].
The payback period can be calculated after the determination
of the optimum insulation thickness. Compared with the reference
thickness, the value can be identified through the discount pay-
back period for a particular thickness. The reference thickness is
set as zero in order for the payback period to be compared to the
uninsulated condition.
P1 –P2 method is given by Ref. [61]. P1 is the life cycle energy
related to the market discount rate d, the inflation rate i, and LT.
The value of P1 can be calculated by Eqs. (10-11). P2 is the ratio of
the life cycle expenditures incurred because of the additional cap-
ital investment to the initial investment, which can be calculated
by Eq. (12),
 LT
1 1+i
P1 = 1− ( i f d = i ) (10)
d−i 1+d
LT
P1 = (if d = i ) (11)
1+i
Rv
P2 = D + (1 − D )P1 + Ms P1 − (12)
(1 + d )LT
where D is the ratio of the down payment to the initial investment,
Ms is the ratio of first-year miscellaneous costs (maintenance, in-
surance, and other incidental costs) to initial investment, and Rv
is the ratio of the resale value at the end of the economic pe-
riod to the initial investment. If no additional capital is invested
other than the initial investment (such as maintenance and opera-
tion costs), P2 can be taken as 1 [58].
Life cycle cost analysis has been usually applied with P1 –P2
method together. Life cycle cost analysis is based on the number
of CDDs and HDDs which can determine the optimum insulation
thickness. And, P1 –P2 method can evaluate the insulation economy.
3.4. Concluding marks
The key influencing factors on energy efficiency design of build-
ing characteristics were reviewed and identified, including building
(7)
shape, orientation, insulation and optimum insulation thickness,
and WWR. Several conclusions can be addressed:
• A sole consideration of one building characteristic cannot guar-
(8)
antee the best energy performance of a building, as it could be
dependent on many factors, such as building shape, orientation,
insulation, and WWR. An appropriate combination of the influ-
encing factors is significant to improve the building energy ef-
ficiency;
• Under some circumstance, the optimum design of building
characteristics in terms of energy-saving is not necessarily ben-
eficial to the others, such as the life cycle cost and the life cycle
environmental impacts;
• The thermal performance of insulation largely depends on the
thickness of the insulation. However, it will not always keep
the trend under a continuously increased insulation thickness.
− Rt,w k The optimum insulation thickness is determined by the life cy-
cle cost, the payback period, and the type of heating or cooling
(9) resource; and
 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
• A large number of existing studies identified that low-E is
the most energy-efficient material for window insulation. Dou-
ble glazing has been usually recommended for the residential
buildings as it is more sensitive to global warming. A range
between 10–25% of WWR is suggested with different types of
glazing as well as different levels of thermal transmittance for
most of the cases.
4. Building service systems
Building service systems are the top energy consumers in a
building. Great efforts have been made by scholars and industry
practitioners to create various advanced technologies for reducing
energy consumption in buildings as well as improving the energy
efficiency of building service systems. The most significant achieve-
ments that have been identified from the existing literature are the
innovative HVAC systems, renewable energy for hot water, smart
control of HVAC and lighting systems, and the relatively new tech-
nology in the automatic demand control of hot water and electrical
appliances. The detailed review is provided as follows.
4.1. HVAC systems
HVAC accounts for approximately 40% of the total energy con-
sumption in a commercial building [112]. Various advanced tech-
nologies have been developed and implemented for HVAC sys-
tems to reduce their energy consumption, which includes variable
air volume system, variable speed pumps or fans, ground-coupled
HVAC system, thermal storage system, heat recovery system, ejec-
tor system, chilled-beam system, evaporative cooling system, etc.
The advantages and disadvantages of each system will be discussed
below.
Variable air volume supply and variable speed pumps are the
most popular and advanced HVAC technologies currently as they
can largely improve the energy performance with reasonable initial
costs, easy installation and very few drawbacks. The energy savings
of the variable air volume system were identified between 30 and
50% based on most of the previous experimental and numerical
studies [63, 64]. The variable speed pumps can help reduce build-
ing energy consumption by almost 50% [65, 66]. The payback pe-
riod of the variable air volume system of a small-scale office build-
ing was found about five years, whereas six months for the energy
retrofitting and 18 months for the new construction of a medium-
size residential building [64].
Ground-coupled, thermal storage, and heat recovery ventilation
techniques have been demonstrated that they can significantly en-
hance the energy efficiency but with a very high upfront cost. This
barrier prevents them from wide adoption in the market. Stud-
ies on vertical closed-loop ground-coupled heat pumps can result
in a range of 30–70% reduction of annual electricity consumption
compared with the air-to-air heat pump systems [69]. Ground-
coupled HVAC is with 20–50% higher cost when compared to that
of air-source units as it is located at depth below the earth’s sur-
face [113]. Most of the previous studies confirmed that the energy
saving of the thermal storage system is between 30–90% [70–72].
However, the coefficient of performance (COP) for the thermal stor-
age system has been found less than those of the traditional vapor-
compression air conditioning systems [72]. Heat recovery ventila-
tion can reduce the energy consumption of HVAC systems by re-
covering the residual heat in ventilation exhausts before supplying
the conditioned fresh air into the rooms [73]. It can save around
70–90% of the energy used for cooling purpose [73, 74].
The ejector system is an energy-efficient measure of the HVAC
system with reasonable additional costs but complex installations.
Guo and Shen [75] proposed a dynamic model to predict the per-
formance of a solar-driven ejector cooling system. They found that
9
the system could save up to 80% of electricity when compared with
a conventional compressor-based air conditioner with the same
cooling load for an office building. Zhu and Jiang [76] developed a
hybrid system that integrated an ejector cooling cycle into a vapor-
compression refrigeration cycle that increases COP by 9.1%. Com-
pared with the traditional vapor compression system, the ejector
cooling technology involves extra works of installation and main-
tenance. However, the energy efficiency of system performance is
significant.
The main drawback of the chilled-beam system is that the
moist air is easily condensed on the chilled-beam, then it leads to
the water drops onto the ceiling [77]. Many measures have been
engaged to solve the problem. Niu et al. [78] combined a chilled-
beam system with a desiccant cooling system. They indicated that
the integration could save up to 44% of energy usage. Hao et al.
[79] combined three technologies, namely chilled beam, displace-
ment ventilation, and desiccant dehumidification in the design and
applied them in an office building. Compared with the traditional
all-air system, the proposed system can reduce 8.2% of the total
energy consumption while reaching a higher level of the indoor
environment.
Among all the air conditioning systems, the evaporative cool-
ing system is a cheap cooling option with easy installation, oper-
ation, and maintenance. Vakiloroaya et al. [67] improved the en-
ergy efficiency of a combined system that integrated the cooling
coil and the heat exchanger into the direct evaporative cooling pro-
cess. Compared with the traditional chilled water central cooling
system, the integrated system can save up to 52% energy. Comb-
ing the central cooling system with the evaporative cooling system
also showed an annual energy saving of 15.69% [68]. One techni-
cal issue of the evaporative cooling system is that the system effi-
ciency declines when the ambient relative humidity is about 40%
[114].
Besides those mentioned above, other methods have also been
investigated previously to reduce the HVAC energy usage. For ex-
ample, adjusting the indoor temperature or recirculating the fresh
air when the building is unoccupied [114, 115]. Also, high COP
chillers [116] and natural ventilation [117] have been considered
as useful measures to improve thermal comfort and reduce energy
consumption.
4.2. Other service systems and smart control
Other service systems in modern buildings include hot water
supply, lighting systems, and electrical appliances. Advanced tech-
nologies have been largely applied to provide thermal energy or
electricity for buildings in achieving sustainable development. Be-
sides, smart control of a building has gradually become a popu-
lar method due to the rapid development of smart technologies in
buildings and the relatively low cost.
Hot water and lighting systems are the second main consumers
of the energy in buildings. Hot water accounts for 10–40% of the
total energy usage in both the residential and commercial sectors
[118]. Many effective measures have been proposed not only to im-
prove the performance efficiency of the systems but also to reduce
the energy needed for producing hot water and electricity, such as
PV, wind turbines, solar thermal, geothermal energy, the replace-
ment of higher energy-efficient boilers, and the improvement of
the insulation for the water distribution systems. For example, the
installation of a solar thermal system can reduce about 78% of the
total annual energy used for producing hot water in a hotel [119].
Li et al. [57] reviewed most of the popularly adopted renewable
technologies in the building designs. Challenges still exist from a
cost-effectiveness perspective. It is urgently needed to confirm that
energy saving could cover the initial cost of renewable technolo-
gies during their life periods.
10 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
Improving control management based on smart metering de-
vices in the building service systems has attracted great attention
due to the fast development of smart technologies. A significant
amount of studies have been carried out on finding out the effi-
ciency of the optimal control of HVAC compared with the fixed op-
eration based on the maximum design assumption. Most of those
previous studies conducted an experiment and numerical analyses
based on the office building type mostly and identified the energy-
saving potentials of between 10–28%, dependent on the locations,
without scarifying the thermal comfort [83–89].
Smart control of lighting systems can provide huge potentials
for energy savings. Although existing design manuals suggest the
best internal illuminance level of 500 lx for the office buildings
[120], many research identified that lighting use is directly in-
fluenced by the building occupant’s behavior and the occupancy
rather than the external illuminance level [121]. Movement detec-
tion dimming control, the movement detection switching control,
the individual daylight dimming control, and the automatic dim-
ming control with occupancy sensors are the most popular devices
for capturing the movement of occupants in buildings. Many pre-
vious studies have been carried out to calculate the related energy
savings. Based on those numerical and experimental studies on the
office buildings mostly, the energy savings vary between 40–70%
[80–82].
Automatic demand control of hot water and electrical appli-
ances is a relatively new technology in the demand side manage-
ment of a building, such as the smart grid and the plug load man-
agement. Kazmi et al. [90] introduced a computationally heuris-
tic approach to optimally control hot water supply through a data
mining method based on data from 46 residential buildings in the
Netherlands. A real case study was performed with the active con-
trol. The results showed that it saved 27% of the energy during 3.5
months. The approach can be applied in the automatic demand-
side management of hot water supply by treating the hot water
vessel as a flexibility bearing device. Plug load behavioral inter-
ventions can help building users to reduce the miscellaneous elec-
tricity load (e.g., table fans, coffee machines, and personal space
heaters) in the offices. However, the awareness of the related tech-
nologies still needs to be enhanced. Also, it was found that the
associated savings hardly return the initial investment [91].
Many technical tools have been applied by building users and
facility managers for the operation of buildings. Online interactive
tools have been promptly used to assess the daily energy usage
profile and diagnose the troubles in those residential and com-
mercial buildings [122–127]. Advanced visualization technology has
also been applied in the development of online interactive tools
into 2D and 3D views. Compared to the traditional chart-based
feedback information, the 2D and 3D spatial, color-coded scheme
can motivate building users to be more engaged as they are easy
to read and understand [128]. Gamification provides a new context
to building users with embodied important information, which can
emotionally encourage and entertain building users by suggesting
appropriate actions and offering tangible suggestions [127].
4.3. Concluding remarks
Improving the energy performance of building service systems
are mainly composed of three groups, including reducing the en-
ergy consumption in buildings through energy-efficient measures,
utilizing the renewable energy technologies like alternative energy
supply systems to provide energy power for buildings, and occu-
pant behavior interventions (i.e., smart control of energy usage
patterns). Several conclusions can be addressed regarding this as-
pect:
• A wide range of advanced technologies is available for building
designers to choose to upgrade the building service systems.
The related energy savings are notable, but some of them have
high upfront costs, complex installations, and limited COP;
• Comparatively, improving the automation control of a building
is an economical solution with easy installations. Significant en-
ergy savings have been confirmed by those previous studies. In
most of the office buildings, smart control of HVAC system and
lighting systems based on sensors can achieve 10–28% and 43–
71% energy savings respectively;
• For HVAC systems, it can be concluded that improving the
control to achieve a higher level of energy efficiency is more
sustainable and cost-effective than replacing HVAC equipment
with more efficient modern technologies. Thus, it is necessary
to improve the current modeling techniques to optimize HVAC
control. The sophisticated mechanism of a HVAC is not only
accounting the heat loss or gain through building components
but also combining the dynamic impacts of occupant behaviors.
Still, it is quite challenging to develop an accurate and effective
model for all the systems that accurately represents reality; and
• Improvement of the automatic demand control of a building
is a relatively new technology, but the awareness needs to be
prompted.
5. Weather conditions and prediction methods
The section explored the impacts of weather conditions on
building energy consumption, which includes outdoor air tempera-
ture, relative humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed. Three ma-
jor prediction methods have also been reviewed, namely physical
models, statistical methods, and hybrid models.
5.1. Meteorological factors
Outdoor air temperature is considered as the most important
environmental factor to determine building energy usage. Previous
studies indicated that the heating and cooling periods are based
on the degree days and the outdoor air temperature [92]. Lok
et al. [93] recorded the long-term weather data of five cities in
China, where these selected cities represent the five main climates,
namely sever cold, cold, cold winter and hot summer, mild, and
warm winter and hot summer. Among the investigated climatic
factors, outdoor air temperature shows significant impacts on the
thermal building requirements at the design stage and the energy
consumption at the operation stage.
Relative humidity also shows an important impact on the HVAC
system under the cooling period. The COP of a HVAC is influenced
by the outdoor air temperature and relative humidity [92, 94]. San-
tamouris et al. [95] indicated that the heat island effect declines
the efficiency of HVAC systems by about 25%. Vakiloroaya et al.
[96] stated that the efficiency of the cooling tower increases if the
relative humidity is below 40%.
Solar radiation influences the building cooling demand as well,
especially under the sub-tropical and tropical conditions. The heat
from solar radiation can be used to produce electricity for build-
ings [92, 93]. Chwieduk and Bogdanska [97] concluded that the
building could maximally take advantage of solar radiation during
the whole year when the azimuth angle of the surface is about
15°. The angle range between −15° and +45° also indicates a good
energy performance of the buildings, which is beneficial for the in-
stallation of solar panels.
Wind speed has been identified as the least significant impact
on building energy compared with other meteorological factors
based on the relevant numerical analysis [92, 93, 98]. The cen-
tral HVAC equipped buildings are always kept at positive pressure,
which makes the intake of fresh air more than the exhausted ones.
 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
Therefore, there is very little heat gain due to infiltration. However,
the design of nature ventilation through a building can be greatly
influenced by wind direction and speed [95].
Decreasing heating demand has been observed under climate
change. For example, in a cold climate, a study of the residen-
tial building indicated that the heating energy would decrease
by around 25–30% during the next century [99]. Previous studies
pointed out that climate change during the 20th century influences
the heating energy needs more than the cooling energy require-
ments [100–102].
5.2. Prediction methods
Prediction models play a significant role in evaluating the build-
ing technologies and management strategies during the design and
operation stages of buildings. It can provide useful information for
the building practitioners to select the best designs and opera-
tion options to reduce energy usage. According to the literature,
the prediction methods can be categorized into three main groups,
including physical models, statistical methods, and hybrid models
[103].
The physical models use physical principles to estimate the
thermal requirement for the whole building and sub-level com-
ponents [129]. This method usually applies thermal dynamics and
physical functions to predict the energy requirement of the whole
building components with the inputs of external environmental
conditions, building-related information, building envelope con-
struction, and building services systems, etc. [129]. Many studies
present the details of calculating the energy need for a building
and its components [130-132].
Degree-days method is one of the most popular physical mod-
eling methods to calculate the cooling and heating demands. The
method is to calculate the differences between the base tempera-
ture and the mean outdoor air temperature. It has been applied in
many studies [60, 110, 111, 133–137]. This method is convenient for
the simple design because it provides adequate results with limited
data required [138]. Kavousian et al. [139] analyzed a data set of
1628 households’ electricity consumption. They found that CDD is
a main factor affecting the cooling requirement in summer. Some
other studies reported that HDD is not dominant for heating de-
mand during winter [105, 140].
However, the degree-day method is not suitable to address the
impacts of climate change on buildings [141, 142]. Because this
method is only based on air temperature, and it does not consider
all the other meteorological parameters. De Rosa et al. [143] made
some improvements based on the standard degree day method.
They also considered other factors such as solar radiation. By con-
sidering all meteorological factors, they suggested a linear relation-
ship between degree days and energy consumption.
Later on, a lot of software have been developed based on the
physical principles, such as DOE-2, EnergyPlus, BLAST, TRNSYS, and
ESP-r, which have been widely used in analysing the building en-
ergy consumption and evaluating the benefits of energy-saving
measures [144–147]. For example, Boyano et al. [148] used Ener-
gyPlus to analysis the relationship between building energy usage
and the surrounding conditions. Trcka et al. [149] assessed the per-
formance of the HVAC system through integration of EnergyPlus
and TRNSYS. Some other studies provided comprehensive informa-
tion on a range of these simulation tools [150–152].
Statistical modeling is another main approach for energy pre-
diction, which has gained a lot of attention recently [153]. This
method does not require physical information about a building and
its components. The statistical approach is mainly based on lin-
ear or multivariate regression analyses, which generate the results
with high statistical significance through a large amount of histor-
ical data [129].
11
A large number of studies have been carried out to evaluate the
environmental impacts through the statistical approach, such as
outdoor temperature [154–159], relative humidity [154, 156–159],
wind speed [154, 158, 159], and solar radiation [154–159]. Based
on the literature review, the most frequently used machine learn-
ing algorithms include multiple linear regression (MLR), artificial
neural networks (ANNs), support vector regression (SVR), and deci-
sion tree [160]. The theoretical model of MLR is given by Ref. [160],
y = β1 x1 + β2 x2 + · · · + βn xn + βn (13)
where y is the target value, x1 , x2 , . . . , xn are the available inputs,
and β is the functional weight.
The theoretical model of ANNs is presented by Ref. [160].

N 
M
f (x ) = w j j wi j x j + wio + w jo (14)
j=1 i=1
where N is the total number of hidden units, M is the total number
of inputs, and  is the activation function of each hidden unit.
SVR is defined by Ref. [160],
F (xi ) = w, ϕ (xi ) + b (15)
where w represents the dot product, and b ∈ R.•, • is the bias;
and ϕ (xi ) is a non-linear mapping of the input space to a high-
dimensional feature space.
Decision tree analysis is given by [160],

n
E= −Pi log2 Pi (16)
i=1
where E is the information entropy, n and Pi are the number of
different target values and the probability of a dataset taking the
ith target value.
Several studies compared the statistical approach with the
physical simulation method. For example, Neto and Fiorelli
[94] compared the ANNs with EnergyPlus. Results show that both
models are suitable for building energy prediction. However, ANNs
provide a slightly better prediction than Energy Plus when consid-
ering the influences of occupant’s behaviors in a building. Turhan
et al. [161] compared ANNs with an energy simulating software
called KEP-IYTE-ESS developed by Izmir Institute of Technology. It
was confirmed that the statistical approach shows advantages in
data collection and the simplicity of the presentation.
The physical model usually provides an effective and accurate
solution. Because it needs comprehensive and detailed building-
related information and environmental parameters as modelling
inputs. However, these parameters are sometimes unavailable and
hard to be obtained, which results in low modelling accuracy. To
ensure the modelling accuracy, validations are required for these
kinds of tools [162]. The statistical method needs a large amount
of data inputs, and it usually requires extensive learning and train-
ing before the development of the model. It may be hard to be
utilized during the design stage of a building as it needs historical
data of the building to training the model [163].
The hybrid model can be applied to predict building energy
consumption when the level of the obtained data is between
those of the above-mentioned two approaches [164]. This approach
can overcome the problem of the physical model with the need
for comprehensive building information, as well as the statisti-
cal model with the need for a large amount of historical data
[165]. Many researchers applied the hybrid model in their research
works. For example, Guo et al. [166] applied the GM (1, 1) (i.e. a
single-variable first-order grey model) in the prediction of a do-
mestic hot water system. The method used data generation tech-
niques to develop a hybrid model, which can form a more regular
sequence from historical data. Dong et al. [167] developed a hybrid
12 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944

Table 1
Previous studies on the effects of building characteristics on building energy consumption.

Factors References Year Major conclusions

Building shape [4,5] 2012, 2001 • Building shape is more important for the building located in the extreme weather
conditions than the building in non-extreme weather areas.
[9] 2009 • Optimal building shape is influenced by WWR, SHGC, RC, etc.
[12] 2007 • Oval-shaped solution can minimize both the construction cost and the energy
consumption.
[11] 2006 • Buildings of regular pentagon have lowest life cycle cost but highest life cycle
environmental impact;
• Buildings of symmetrical pentagon show an opposite situation.
Building [19] 2016 • Building life cycle is suggested to be considered in the optimization of building
orientation orientation.
[17] 2015 • WWR and RC have different levels of impacts on the optimization of building
orientation under different circumstances.
[13] 2011 • Building should face south in the northern hemisphere.
[15] 2006 • Optimal orientation is depended on building shape.
[14] 2001 • In the northern hemisphere, orienting building 20–30° to the south is suggested.
Insulation [26] 2017 • Aerogel system is a new effective window insulation technology;
• 40 times level of insulation compared with the normal materials.
[44,46,45, 2017, 2013, 2012, 2011, • A range between 10–25% of WWR is suggested.
43,30,42] 2007, 2000
[62] 2011 • Life cycle cost analysis and P1-P2 method are the most common used models for
the optimum insulation thickness.
[104] 2010 • The rising trend is not always reduced under an increasing thickness.
[20,23] 2006, 2002 • Placement of wall insulation varies under different circumstance.
[25] 2005 • Low-E and gas filling are the most common insulation materials for window.

model by integrating statistical modelling and physical modelling
in the energy prediction of residential buildings. They also com-
pared it with five exclusive machine learning algorithms, namely
ANNs, Gaussian process regression (GPR), SVR, Gaussian mixture
model (GMM), and least-square SVR. Both of the studies showed
that the modelling accuracy of the prediction is considerably high.
5.3. Concluding marks
Weather conditions show the influences on building energy
consumption which include air temperature, relative humidity,
wind speed, and solar radiation:
6. Discussions and recommendations
Great efforts have been carried out to improve the energy effi-
ciency design of buildings. The effective measures can be classified
into three categories, including improvement of building character-
istics to reduce the building energy demand (i.e., optimization of
building shape, orientation, and insulation), use of energy-efficient
equipment and technologies (i.e., thermal storage, heating recov-
ery, evaporative cooling, control upgrade), and occupant’s behav-
iors (i.e., access to control and behavioral interventions). The ma-
jor findings from the previous studies are summarized in Table 1,
Table 2, and Table 3. Several major conclusions are provided as fol-
lows,

• A significant number of numerical analyses and modeling stud-

• Outdoor air temperature has been identified as the most signif-
icant factor to determine the building energy usage, comparing
with other meteorological parameters;
• Relative humidity influences the energy efficiency of HVAC sys-
tems;
• Solar radiation significantly affects the building cooling demand
in the tropical climates. Whereas, the heat from solar radiation
can be maximally used to produce electricity through the in-
stallation of solar panels; and
• The effect of wind speed has been identified as less significant
for the energy use of HVAC systems in buildings, but it greatly
affects the design of building orientation and natural ventila-
tion.
Physical models, statistical methods, and hybrid models are the
three main prediction methods:
• The physical model usually provides accurate results but needs
the comprehensive building and surrounding environmental in-
formation;
• The statistical method does not require the physical information
of a building, but it needs to collect enough historical data to
training the model; and
• Hybrid model is a good option to predict building energy con-
sumption requiring a level of data between the above two
groups.
ies have been carried out to address the relationships between
the energy savings and optimal design of building characteris-
tics. There is no remarkable improvement in the existing stud-
ies. The optimizing design is still not a completely solved topic
as it depends on many factors. The current studies barely con-
sider them all in their energy analysis tools which still lead a
discrepancy between the predicted and measured energy use in
buildings;
• Under some circumstances, some of the energy efficiency de-
sign solutions did not consider economic or environmental ben-
efits. The assessment criteria of the energy-efficient measures
should have a broader scope in the future works, including
the life cycle cost and the life cycle environmental impacts.
Also, there is an urgent need to confirm the feasibility in real
projects;
• A wide range of advanced technologies is available for building
designers; challenges still exist from a cost-effectiveness per-
spective. It is important to confirm the practical energy savings
of those adopted technologies during the building’s operation
stage to make sure the saving is enough to cover the upfront
cost with a reasonable payback period;
• Compared to technological innovation, occupant behavioral
change has more benefits from the literature. It is low cost and
needs less high-technology knowledge. It is easy to be imple-
mented and can be applied in either new or existing buildings.
Financial incentives should be prompted to encourage building
Table 2
Advantages and disadvantages of the current technologies of building service systems.

Factors Innovative technologies References Year Advantages and disadvantages

HVAC Ground-coupled technology and heat recovery ventilation [69] 2014 • High initial cost;
• Significant energy savings.
Evaporative cooling system [114,67,68], 2014, 2011, 2011 • Cheap cooling option;

S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
• Easy insulation, operation and maintenance;
• High energy saving;
• Limited COP.
Ejector system [76,75] 2012, 2009 • Reasonable additional cost;
• Signification energy savings;
• High COP;
• Complex installations.
Thermal storage [72, 71, 73, 70] 2011, 2001, 2001, 2000 • Significant energy savings;
• Low COP.
Chilled beam system [77, 79,78] 2010, 2007,2002 • High energy savings;
• Suggest with desiccant dehumidification because of
the moist problem.
VAV systems and Variable speed pumps [66,65,63, 64] 2004, 2003,2000,1996 • Reasonable initial cost;
• Easy installation;
• Few drawbacks;
• Short payback period;
• High energy savings.
Other service systems PV, wind turbines, solar thermal, and geothermal energy, etc. [118,119] 2018, 2007 • Significant energy savings;
• High initial cost.
Smart control Smart control of HVAC in office buildings [86, 88, 85, 84,87,89] 2018, 2018, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2010 • Saving potentials of between 10–28% in office
buildings;
• Without scarifying the thermal comfort.
Automatic demand control of hot water and electrical appliances [91,90] 2017, 2016 • Relatively new technologies;
• Smart grid;
• Plug load management;
• Associated savings hardly return the initial
investment;
• Poor awareness.
Smart control of lighting [80,81,82] 2012, 2008, 2008 • Saving potentials of between 40–70% in office
buildings.

13
14 S. Chen, G. Zhang and X. Xia et al. / Energy & Buildings 216 (2020) 109944
Table 3
Previous studies on the effects of weather impacts on building energy consumption.
Factor References Year
Air temperature [92,93] 2017, 2005
Relative humidity [92,94] 2017, 2008
[96] 2014
[95] 2001
Solar radiation [92,93] 2017, 2005
[97] 2004
Wind speed [93] 2005
[95] 2001
users not only in commercial buildings but also in residential
buildings;
• The trends of the key influencing factors on the energy effi-
ciency design of buildings changed over the past few decades.
Previously, substantial research has been carried out to in-
vestigate the influencing factors on the optimal design of
building characteristics and advanced technologies of building
service systems. However, challenges still exist from a cost-
effectiveness perspective. And some of the numerical analysis
results are hard to validate to confirm the feasibility in the real
projects. Comparatively, occupant behavior interventions pro-
vide an alternative solution for building users to improve the
building energy efficiency with a relatively low cost and unso-
phisticated construction procedures; and
• Rare studies have been carried out to integrate the occupant
behavior model into the current energy simulation software.
It was recognized that the effects of occupants should be in-
cluded. But the plan has not been put into practice. For the
development of modeling, it is necessary that the academic
researchers and building practitioners community become in-
formed about the weaknesses and strengths of the various
modeling methods and how the developed models perform in
real-world situations.
Based on the above discussions and the critical literature re-
view, two main potential research directions are recommended as
follows:
• Dynamic interactions: It should be pointed out that very few
studies have considered the dynamic interactions between var-
ious design measures. Practically, most of the real buildings
adopt more than one to improve energy performance. For ex-
ample, improvements in building insulation and control of the
lighting system have a direct influence on the internal thermal
requirement, which indirectly affects the design of HVAC. Re-
flective insulation usually prevents the implementation of re-
newable technologies on the building roofs. Thus, building ef-
ficiency design needs to be conducted from a systematic point
of view to figure out the underlying issues among different ef-
ficient design measures of buildings; and
• Benchmarking and energy savings: Although the energy sav-
ings of related effective design measures or technologies have
been determined in many previous numerical analyses, it is still
not very helpful to be a guided reference. As the efficient build-
ing design is extremely complicated with different types of con-
ditions and various parameter inputs, there still lacks reliable
methods to define and simulate the related energy consump-
tion in buildings. Improving the level of predictions and pre-
cisely quantifying the various parameters are still very impor-
tant in the future to tackle the complex nature of building en-
ergy efficiency design. To confirm the energy potentials of both
behavioral changes and the technological updates of building
Major conclusions
Air temperature is more important than other meteorological parameters
The COP of a HVAC system is influenced by the outdoor air temperature and relative
humidity.
The value of relative humidity is suggested below 40%.
Heat island effect can reduce the efficiency of HVAC systems by 25%.
Solar radiation influences the building cooling demand in sub-tropical and tropical
conditions.
The best azimuth angle of surface in a building is 15°, which can maximally utilize
solar radiation.
Wind speed was less significant for the central HVAC equipped buildings.
Wind speed may affect the design of natural ventilation.
characteristics and building service systems is urgently needed
to help the building users to make smart decisions.
7. Conclusions
This study provided a state-of-the-art review of the internal and
external influencing factors on energy efficiency design of build-
ings, which can be categorized into three main categories: (1) im-
provement of building characteristics to reduce the building energy
demand, (2) use of energy-efficient equipment and technologies,
and (3) occupant’s behaviors.
Previously, substantial research has been carried out to investi-
gate the influencing factors on the optimal design of building char-
acteristics and advanced technologies of building service systems.
However, challenges still exist from a cost-effectiveness perspec-
tive. Also, some of the numerical analysis results are hard to test
the feasibility in the real projects. Comparatively, occupant behav-
ior interventions provide an alternative solution for building users
to improve building energy efficiency with a relatively low cost
and unsophisticated construction procedures. It is easy to be im-
plemented and can be applied in either new or existing buildings.
It can be concluded that the trends of the key influencing
factors on the energy efficiency design of buildings have slightly
changed over the past few decades. The influencing factors had
been mainly investigated in the optimal design and technologi-
cal updates of buildings previously but now have incorporated the
building management of occupant behavior. Thus, the results of
this overview suggest two research directions. Building efficiency
design needs to be conducted from a systematic view to figure out
the underlying issues among different efficient design measures
of buildings. Energy performance benchmarking of both occupant
behavior interventions and the technological updates of building
characteristics and building service systems are urgently needed as
a guided reference to help the building users to make smart deci-
sions.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the
following financial interests/personal relationships which may be
considered as potential competing interests.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the
Anhui Antai Technology Co., Ltd in China.
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