Do residential building energy efficiency standards reduce energy consumption in China? – A data-driven method to validate the actual performance of building energy efficiency standards

Abstract

Building energy efficiency standards (BEES) are believed to be one of the most effective policies to reduce building energy consumption, especially in the case of the rapid urbanization content in China. However, there is little evidence backed up by measured data to validate the actual effectiveness of BEES in China. Using survey data collected from 1,128 households in Chongqing China, this study applied the propensity scores matching method to estimate the effect of two BEES levels: the 50%-BEES (low level) and the 65%-BEES (high level). Results show that buildings built with 65%-BEES, on average, can reduce cooling and heating electricity use intensity (kWh/m 2 /a) by 41%, compared to buildings in the absence of the BEES.Meanwhile, the adoption of 50%-BEES can reduce cooling and heating electricity use intensity (kWh/m 2 /a) by 38%. However, energy savings are not significant if comparing buildings with 65%-BEES and 50%-BEES. The results indicate that there exists a performance gap between calculated design performance savings and actual operation energy savings. These empirical findings provide policy makers with 2 valuable feedback on buildings' actual performance. The findings suggest that it is necessary to incorporate outcome-based compliance pathways into the current BEES system. Lastly, a data-driven building policy evaluation mechanism should be developed in China. Energy consumption databases should be developed to support policies such as building energy codes and standards' development and performance evaluation.

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“…Chinese RACs standards have been redefined according to the American and Japanese standards [4]. It is believed that building energy efficiency standards (BEES) are one of the most effective policies to reduce energy consumption, especially when the rapid urbanization is taking place, as in China [5].…”

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“…Building energy codes are legal mandatory requirements which usually include specifications regarding envelope, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC), domestic hot water (DHW), lighting systems, renewable systems, etc. [2,[4][5][6]. Building energy codes play a fundamental role in achieving energy efficiency objectives for newly constructed buildings and reducing building energy demand and carbon emissions, and the advancement of building energy codes is considered one of the most impactful ways to improve the energy performance of building [4][5][6][7].…”

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“…China ranks second in building energy consumption in the world and first in residential energy consumption, 1 reached 857 million tons of coal equivalent (tce) in building energy consumption in 2015. 2 In China, the building energy consumption has reached 32% of the total energy consumption of the whole society. 3,4 By 2020, China's energy-intensive building area will reach 72 billion m 2 , accounting for 40% of the total energy consumption, which will directly aggravate the energy crisis.…”