Variable refrigerant flow systems account for a considerable portion of energy consumption in buildings. In order to improve the energy efficiency and estimate the energy saving potentials of variable refrigerant flow systems this study proposes a data mining based method to identify and interpret the power consumption patterns and associations. Two descriptive data mining algorithms, clustering analysis and association rules mining, are used for data partitioning and association mining. The proposed method consists of four phases: data pre-processing, data partitioning, data association mining and knowledge interpretation. Experimental data collected from a tested variable refrigerant flow system in the standard psychrometer testing room are pre-processed and prepared to examine the proposed method. Three time independent influential factors: part load ratio, refrigerant charge level and cooling condition are analyzed. Results show that the method is able to help identify energy consumption patterns and extract energy consumption rules in variable refrigerant flow systems. Three distinct energy consumption patterns are identified: undercharge fault, low and high part load ratio conditions. For compressor operation frequency switch control and refrigerant undercharge patterns, the energy saving potentials could be estimated by making comparisons between energy patterns and rules in a top-down way. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.