Techno-economic analysis and energy modelling as a key enablers for smart energy services and technologies in buildings

Smart energy services and technologies are key components of energy transition and decarbonisation strategies for the built environment. On the one hand, the technical potential of the building stock in terms of energy, emissions and cost savings is large and exploited only partially at present. On the other hand, the increasing availability of data generated by smart meters, smart devices, sensors and building management systems can help monitoring, verifying and tracking building energy performance improvements in a transparent way. In particular, energy modelling and data analytics can provide empirically grounded and tested methods to standardize the way energy performance is measured and reported. Further, techno-economic analysis is crucial to ensure the feasibility of innovative business models. For these reasons, this paper aims to address the role of techno-economic analysis and energy modelling as key enablers for next-generation energy services and technologies. In terms of methods, scientific literature selection criteria are derived from previous research and are focused on limitations and bottlenecks to the achievement of innovative business models, which are motivated, at their very basics, by energy, emission and cost savings. Additionally, besides these potential savings, smart energy services and technologies can provide multiple additional benefits such as improved Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and energy flexibility on the demand side, with respect to energy infrastructures. First, the research identifies the key elements that are necessary to integrate and to streamline techno-economic analysis and energy modelling processes. After that, it highlights potential advances in the broad area of energy transitions and decarbonisation of the built environment that can be achieved as an evolution of current practices and processes. Finally, it envisions the creation of “eco-systems” of interacting models for the building sector that share common underlying principles.