Abstract The energy assessment of single buildings and of larger areas of built environment, although exhibiting similarities in terms of technique, have in the past often used different approaches to energy modelling. The growing availability of empirical data and the capability of building modelling software has, more recently, allowed these differences to be reduced. This paper demonstrates, across two very different case-studies in UK and India, that techniques for community energy modelling can be used in a way that maintains detail in energy demand characteristics, thus helping to bridge the gap between detailed building assessment and higher-level energy system modelling. However, understanding the portability of such techniques requires an understanding of energy characteristics that can be specific to a geographic area. This study documents these important differences and proposes a more transferrable approach to detailed community energy modelling.