This paper develops a rapid evaluation method for chillers' operation strategies based on history data analysis, identifying their potential to improve the chillers' performance. The data proliferation method and the moving-maximum method are developed to obtain the approximate best performance line of the overall chillers, and the line is taken as the evaluation benchmark. Three indexes, I-select, I-load, and I, are defined to evaluate the selection of the active chillers, the load allocation among the active chillers, and the operation performance of the overall chillers respectively. With the index I, the percentage of potential energy saving and the least energy consumption during a period can also be calculated. The method is validated by evaluating two operation strategies of chillers. And the results of the evaluation identify the potential improvement of the strategies. Also the evaluation method has low computation cost and can be executed rapidly. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.