Suitability assessment of building energy saving technologies for office buildings in cold areas of China based on an assessment framework

•An assessment method considering economy, environment and technology is proposed.•Office buildings are classified into 3 types and weights are calculated respectively.•BESTs were summed up as 3 suitability levels.•Recommendations are proposed for adopting in design stage.

Blind application and extensive copy of building energy saving technologies have been found very common through investigation in China. Emphases should be put on the suitability assessment when selecting and optimizing building energy saving technologies. This paper created an assessment method, namely an assessment framework to assess the suitability level of building energy saving technologies from a holistic point of view. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process was adopted. 3 factors and 8 sub-factors were included in the framework. The office buildings were classified into 3 types to calculate weights of factors and sub-factors. The assessment framework was established for each type of office buildings. 20 energy saving technologies from surveyed cases was selected as case study. Ranks of suitability level of the assessment objects were obtained for each type of office buildings. The assessment results could be referred when selecting building energy saving technologies in the design stage.