Comparison of energy-efficiency benchmarking methodologies for residential buildings

Benchmarking with defined metrics is an excellent tool to track progress and obtain the desired goals. Benchmarking end-use energy in the residential sector has been a topic of great interest among research-ers in recent times. This research analyses the buildings' energy performance based on a devised bench -marking procedure for residential buildings in the Indian city of Jaipur. Creation of benchmarking system involves collection, analysis and verification of the results obtained from a similar set of data into consid-eration. This study explores the relationship between the Energy Performance Index (EPI) and with other influencing factors like; Area, end-use appliances (Fridge, AC, Cooler, etc.) to ensure the contribution of each variable towards the buildings' end-use energy consumption. In this study, information has been collected and analysed from over 2700 houses of Jaipur City. The independent and dependent variables have been identified, and a five-star benchmarking framework has been developed. There are very few studies available investigating the effectiveness of various benchmarking techniques, the domain still lacks a comparative performance study of black-box and gray-box benchmarking techniques. This study has selected two black box approaches and one gray box approach to design a benchmarking model and has compared the energy performance of sample buildings. According to the Pearson and Spearman cor-relation coefficients, Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Bayesian ranking scores are the most consis-tent for energy benchmarking of the residential building sector. This study proposes a novel implementation of the composite indicator (C.I.) as a platform for designing energy benchmarking tables. Finally, the study concludes with recommendations for future work to employ numerous or hybrid com-binations of benchmarking methodologies that are expected to provide a more accurate depiction of the energy performance of buildings. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.