While everyone is aware of the crucial importance of the development of new energy technologies today, especially those focused on renewable energies or the rational use of energy, the importance of their evaluation is only beginning to be fully recognized . To gauge the actual utility of these innovations is however fundamental to enable them to be really useful. However, a systematic analysis of methods for evaluating the operation after installation of the various non-conventional energy systems is still lacking. Our current practice and our ongoing contacts with the players in the field have also shown us that the way in which the evaluation of the energy efficiency of these new technologies is being carried out suffers from this lack of a synthetic tool.
The book therefore has two objectives. The first is to provide researchers and engineers with a synthesis of methods for evaluating energy systems, the result of several decades of work in this field. The book, fed on examples taken from real cases, is intended both synthetic and concrete, presenting a view
As exhaustive as possible of the domain, while constituting a tool easily exploitable by the target audience. The second objective is to break the vicious circle whereby in situ assessment is still somewhat neglected today, sometimes considered as a "thankless" work, long, seemingly expensive, hardly valorizable and poorly valued. In attempting to organize the scientific experience of more than thirty years, the author hopes to convince of the considerable usefulness of the approach, both economically and humanly.
