by Shane Henson — July 9, 2012—A comprehensive English summary of building energy practices and policies in China was recently released jointly by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit created to act as a catalyst to advance energy efficiency policies, programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors; the Global Buildings Performance Network; and the China Sustainable Energy Program.
In China, an estimated 2 billion square meters of new buildings are added each year, and the total area of existing buildings in 2010 amounts to 48 billion square meters. In the context of this unprecedented construction boom, this new report, titled Building Energy Efficiency Policies in China: Status Report, provides a unique opportunity to learn from Chinese best practices on building energy efficiency, says ACEEE.
Five major building policy aspects in China are reviewed in the report: building energy performance, building energy efficiency policies for new buildings and for existing buildings, application of renewable energy to buildings, and rural building energy use.
China has developed a system of building energy codes, building energy efficiency labeling and evaluation, and green building labeling to improve building energy efficiency in new buildings. For existing buildings, the report introduced building energy efficiency policies and practices targeted at residential, governmental and large-scale public buildings, colleges and universities, including heating reform and energy-efficient retrofitting in Northern China, where there is a greater need for residential heating.
The report provides concrete examples of success stories in China rarely known to the international community, says ACEEE. However, it also points out that while progress has been notable, there are still many challenges that need to be tackled, including rising building energy consumption, updating building energy codes, the need for relevant stakeholders to build more capacity, and the enormous challenge of promoting building energy efficiency in rural areas.
This report also describes future directions in China, and provides valuable insights to the global community on what can be learned from Chinese best practices for energy efficient buildings, and how important these are to effectively avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the building sector and help tackle climate change.
