A review of validation methods for building energy modeling programs

Building energy simulation analysis plays an important supporting role in the conservation of building energy. Since the early 1980s, researchers have focused on the development and validation of building energy modeling programs (BEMPs) and have basically formed a set of systematic validation methods for BEMPs, mainly including analytical, comparative, and empirical methods. Based on related papers in this field, this study systematically analyzed the application status of validation methods for BEMPs from three aspects, namely, sources of validation cases, comparison parameters, and evaluation indicators. The applicability and characteristics of the three methods in different validation fields and different development stages of BEMPs were summarized. Guidance were proposed for researchers to choose more suitable validation methods and evaluation indicators. In addition, the current development trend of BEMPs and the challenges faced by validation methods were investigated, as well as the existing progress of current validation methods under this trend was analyzed. Subsequently, the development direction of the validation method was clarified.