China's Top-1000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises Program:Reducing Energy Consumption of the 1000 Largest Industrial Enterprises in China

Abstract

In 2005, the Chinese government announced an ambitious goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20% between 2005 and 2010. One of the key initiatives for realizing this goal is the Top-1000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises program. The energy consumption of these 1000 enterprises accounted for 33% of national and 47% of industrial energy usage in 2004. Under the Top-1000 program, 2010 energy consumption targets were determined for each enterprise. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the program design and initial results, given limited information and data, in order to understand the possible implications of its success in terms of energy and carbon dioxide emissions reductions and to recommend future program modifications based on international experience with similar target-setting agreement programs. Even though the Top-1000 Program was designed and implemented rapidly, it appears that -depending upon the GDP growth rate --it could contribute to somewhere between approximately 10% and 25% of the savings required to support China's efforts to meet a 20% reduction in energy use per unit of GDP by 2010.

Overview of current energy-efficiency policies in China

“…While the program goal of 100 Mtce savings in 2010 is not extremely ambitious for these enterprises, the enterprises have already saved more than half of the goal at the end of 2007 and are on track to surpass the goal by 2010. It is possible that these 1000 enterprises will contribute 25% of the savings required to support China's efforts to meet a 20% reduction in energy use per unit of GDP by 2010 (Price et al, 2008(Price et al, , 2009). The Top-1000 program is being expanded to include additional enterprises in a number of provinces and further savings from the industrial sector will be realized through plant closures as part of the industrial structural adjustment efforts, through improvements spurred by the differential electricity pricing and the enterprise award system for energy intensity reductions, and a through implementation of a number of the Ten-Key Projects focused on the industrial sector.…”

Updating the China Model

“…For example, it announced the goal of reducing energy use as a percentage of GDP by 20 percent between 2005 and 2010, with rewards for firms that meet the target, and punishments for those that do not. 28 As noted earlier, China is a global pioneer in the area of green technology. Total energy consumption is still increasing, and in particular the use of coal for generating electricity is on the rise, but the Chinese government is also encouraging more efficient use of energy.…”

Awareness and acceptability of companies on market-based instruments for energy saving: a survey study in Taicang, China

“…Smaller and financially constrained companies are more susceptible to economic incentives than their larger or financially less constrained counterparts (Skuras et al, 2006). The industrial energy saving policies in China focus on the large energy-consuming companies so far (Price et al, 2008). These companies may have longer experiences with energy efficiency programs.…”