Energy performance evaluation and comparison of sampled Brazilian bank buildings with the existing and proposed energy rating systems

The energy performance of 11 bank branches in the Brazilian city of Curitiba was analysed using bottom-up engineering energy benchmarking method. As part of a previous study to classify bank buildings, these bank branches were selected for a further study with their building parametric and energy-related data obtained from building drawings and specifications as well as on-site surveys. The energy assessment of these branches was conducted using the existing (RTQ-C) and proposed (INI-C) Brazilian energy efficient labelling regulations for non-domestic buildings. The ability of both systems to produce results which are compatible and could be used to reflect the actual building energy consumption was examined. The study shows improvement of the INI-C system with calculation of energy consumption values and conditions for different reference buildings. However, performance gap between the calculated and actual energy consumption was found due to various reasons including reference values for office buildings were inaccurate for bank buildings. Hence, a list of modified reference values was proposed for bank buildings to represent bank buildings more accurately. This paper highlights the strengths and limitations of both the existing and proposed regulations and presents a reality check against the calculations of energy ratings and actual energy consumption of the buildings. It was concluded that the existing and proposed regulations have to be improved significantly in terms of calculation methodology in order to meet the demand of future energy policy in Brazil.