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In many modern buildings, different monitoring and control systems are used, but majority of them are not directly connected with the energy consumption optimisation. This paper presents a concept of an integrated performance monitoring system for promotion of energy awareness in buildings. The reference architecture of the envisioned system evolved from the traditional management structure, plan-do-check-act model. Traditional plan-do-check-act model has been upgraded with the integration of prediction engine, knowledge repository and modern scientific approaches for supporting energy awareness including early warning, optimisation and supervision. The proposed concept is constituted upon three modules: (1) data acquisition and processing, (2) knowledge repository, (3) performance monitoring system including prediction engine, consumption modelling, emissions calculation and decision support. The concept of three modules evolved from the idea to enrich existing solutions with the awareness about possible future abnormal situations and to enable preventive actions. Presented case study represents a repeatable application of the energy cost centres based modelling of energy consumption in educational and research buildings by using neuro-fuzzy modelling approach. Initial testing results are indicating the potential of electricity savings up to 15% enabled by visualisation and awareness about electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Approach for identification of entities that are operating within the same context. • Contextualisation of energy consumption is essential for performance monitoring. • Approach with the potential for sound decision support of the energy manager. • Combination of two different methods provided additional and valuable information. The European Union has identified buildings as the most promising targets for improving energy efficiency and has quantified a significant energy saving potential associated with the refurbishment of a building's envelope and the installation of new technologies. The key objective of monitoring and modelling energy profiles in buildings is to provide the necessary background on energy consumption and to allow informed decisions to be made. The modelling usually starts with the integration of energy into the activity flow charts, which is the basis for the decisions on setting up the structure of energy cost centres. This paper evaluates the capabilities of data envelopment analysis in combination with energy cost centre based modelling for the electricity consumption analysis of a selected group of elementary schools and kindergartens. The electricity consumption data was obtained in cooperation with a local energy agency, which was acting as the energy manager for the selected group of buildings. The results confirmed the potential of combining the data envelopment analysis and the energy cost centre based modelling in order to properly identify the schools having the potential for energy efficiency improvements. Additionally, the combination of results obtained with the data envelopment analysis and the contextual parameters hidden in the structure of energy cost centres provides additional and valuable information for the energy manager and helps him with proper benchmarking of the analysed energy management practices. The results encouraged the energy manager to look for concrete opportunities to improve the energy efficiency and revealed that electricity savings of up to 14% could be achieved with better energy management in the selected group of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]