The existence of thermal bridges in building envelopes affects the energy performance of buildings, their durability and occupants' thermal comfort. Typically the effect of thermal bridges on the energy performance is taken into account by implementing an equivalent U-value in 1D whole building energy simulation program. This treatment accounts for the effect of thermal bridges on the overall thermal transmittance, while their thermal inertia effect is ignored. The presence of thermal bridges not only reduces the overall thermal resistance but also changes the dynamic thermal characteristics of the envelope. This paper investigates the dynamic effect of thermal bridges on the energy performance of residential buildings through simulations. A two-story residential building is used as a case study. Three methods, namely equivalent U-value method, equivalent wall method, and direct 2D/3D modeling method, are implemented in WUFI Plus, a whole building Heat, Air and Moisture (HAM) modeling program. Simulations are carried out for two climates with different insulation levels. Simulation results show that for the cold climate the annual heating load of this building with the inclusion of thermal bridges modeled using 3D dynamic method is 8-13% higher than that modeled using the equivalent U-value method, and 4-9% higher than that modeled using the equivalent wall method. With the increase of the insulation level, the percentage effect of thermal bridges on the heating load increases, while the difference among the three methods decreases. For the hot climate, simulation results show that the presence of thermal bridges increases the annual cooling load by 20%. Compared to the 3D dynamic method, the annual cooling load is underestimated by 17% using the equivalent U-value method and by 14% using the equivalent wall method, respectively. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.