Mechanisms underlying operational energy consumption of buildings for low carbon city construction: A review

With rapid urbanization, the increasing building stock, building operation energy consumption and the corresponding carbon emissions have become the important factors restricting the sustainable development of cities. To reduce energy consuming, it is necessary to explore the mechanisms underlying building's operational energy consumption and carbon emission. Although previous studies have analyzed the influencing factors and driving mechanism of urban building carbon emission from different perspectives, a systematical review of the relevant studies which could provide comprehensive guidance for building energy conservation and consumption reduction is fairly scarce. Following the Social-Economic-Natural Complex Ecosystem theory, we comprehensively discussed the driving mechanisms of the building's operational energy consumption and carbon emission. We further analyzed the various single-source driving mechanisms from the perspective of socio-economic, building feature, regional climate and microclimate conditions. Finally, we tackled the weaknesses of current researches and addressed the prospect for future development. The driving mechanism summarized in this work would contribute to the development of related research and support low carbon city construction.