The monitoring of building performance provides useful feedback for future design, while the management of building energy systems is the final element of active influence that the designer can have on the operation of a building in use. The use of computers in buildings for monitoring and energy management is discussed in this paper, with particular reference to three solar heating field trials on a school, a hospital and an elderly persons home. The lessons learnt from these trials have implications both for future design of low energy systems and for current energy management and control. The development in the latter area has been dramatic in recent years, but there is still room for improvement in energy management systems, especially in the area of control strategies. The paper discusses the data logger used in the field trials, and describes the software functions added to make it a controller as well. The paper concludes with a discussion on the potential of adaptive and self-learning control for building heating systems, which the field trial results showed as an area with potential for future development.

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