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Energy consumption in buildings accounts for up to 40% of total energy consumption. In an effort to improve energy and environmental sustainability, buildings have been the target of a number of energy demand reduction strategies. Occupant behaviour in buildings is a key factor that significantly influences the energy consumption of buildings. Whilst researchers have focused considerable effort into understanding and developing strategies that address the impact of occupant behaviour on building energy consumption, the high-energy demand of buildings is considered a useful source of demand-side energy flexibility for the smart-grid. In addressing the influence of occupant behaviour in buildings. In harnessing the energy flexibility potentials of buildings, building energy management systems play a vital role. Traditional building energy management systems are however static and lack input of dynamic factors such as occupancy as well as occupant preference. In addition, traditional building energy management systems are limited in their ability to optimally coordinate the use of buildings energy flexibility without compromising occupant comfort on the room-level.

Modern buildings nowadays provide an enormous data now available from various sources ranging from modular wireless sensors to smart meters, analytics of these data can enhance the management of energy systems (electrical storage, PV generation, heat storage etc). Using Big Data combined with deep learning techniques offers new possibilities to better predict energy use and decentralized renewable energy production (e.g. from local weather data taking into account local phenomena such as urban heat islands). This combined with a more bottom-up approach of multi-agent systems with a gossip-based cooperative approach offers decentralized control and monitoring autonomy to further reduce the complexity of the energy system integration and makes it possible to relate the outcomes of the integral approach for urban energy system integration.

Highly glazed building envelopes are still a common feature of today's modern architecture despite the on-going raging debate on the energy and comfort performance of highly glazed buildings. It is argued by proponents of high performance and green building designs that the disadvantages of highly glazed buildings outweigh the advantages when operational. In this study, through on-site measurement and simulations, we investigated the behaviour of a recently completed naturally ventilated double-skin façade system at a building in the netherlands with a complex form and a large atrium connecting it to the core of the building. This in a way coupled with the exhaust ventilation of the offices within the building created a problematic thermal indoor environment. It was shown that the dynamic behaviour due to the large influence of the wind fluctuations and solar radiance proved to be highly complex resulting in discomfort and a higher cooling load.