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Over the last few decades, energy efficiency has received increasing attention from the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation (AECO) industry. Digital Twins have the potential to advance the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase in different application fields. With the increasing industry interest, there is a need to review the current status of research developments in Digital Twins for building energy efficiency. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the applications of digital twins for building energy efficiency, analyze research trends and identify research gaps and potential future research directions. In this review, Sustainability and Energy and Buildings are among the most frequently cited sources of publications. Literature reviewed was classified into four different topics: topic 1. Optimization design; topic 2. Occupants’ comfort; topic 3. Building operation and maintenance; and topic 4. Energy consumption simulation. This research was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS), grant number 22/2551-0000574-8.

Infrared thermography (IRT) has become a commonly applied non-destructive testing method for assessing building envelopes. Like any diagnosis tool, IRT requires an appropriate experience and principle understanding, mainly when the method is used for quantitative analyses.The challenges of the IRT often deal with the dynamic properties of building partitions.Climatic conditions have a certain variability, and the accumulated energy storage in the building components can affect their temperature as well as the calculated thermal performance. This paper aims to analyze how stationary and dynamic regimes of a quantitative IRT test could impact the measured thermal transmittance of heavy multi-leaf walls. Investigation in two European countries with different climatic conditions are reported. In this way, it is discussed which boundary conditions should be guaranteed to provide reliable information about a building envelope using quantitative IRT. In order to check the quality of the measurements, the heat flux meter (HFM) method was also implemented, following the ISO 9869. The research revealed that it could be possible touse short-lasting tests in the climatic conditions of Southern Europe, while long-term tests should beimplemented in Northern European countries where climatic conditions are less regular. This work was financially supported by UIDB/04708/2020 of the CONSTRUCT-Instituto de I&Dem Estruturas e Construções-and national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). This work was also financed by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) under the International Academic Partnership Program within the framework of the grant: E-mobility and sustainable materials and technologies EMMAT(PPI/APM/2018/1/00027)