China: Energy conservation begins
at home By Stephen Wong
SHANGHAI - The Chinese government has set
an ambitious plan to construct energy-saving
buildings and improve the energy efficiency of
existing buildings in the next five years as part
of its efforts to ease the country's increasing
thirst for energy. But property developers and the
general public remain unenthusiastic because of
lack of incentives.
Use of Energy for
heating, cooling and lighting buildings has been
growing rapidly in China in recent years because
of the country's
construction spree. But
according to official statistics, energy-saving
housing only accounted for 3.5% of China's urban
residential construction. Less than 10% of newly
constructed buildings have adopted energy-saving
cooling, heating and lighting systems.
"The energy consumed in heating every
square meter of housing in China is two to three
times that in a developed country," Liu Zhifeng,
vice minister of construction, told a housing
conference in August.
Housing accounts for
27.6% of China's total energy consumption and has
seen the quickest growth in recent years, said Ma
Kai, minister in charge of the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's
top economic planning body. With China become
increasingly dependent on oil imports, the
government has felt an urgent need to improve
energy efficiency.
In its 11th Five-Year
Projection for Economic and Social Development
(2006-10), endorsed by the National People's
Congress (NPC) in March, the government set an
ambitious goal to reduce total energy consumption
per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20%
over the next five years.
Nevertheless,
the country's energy consumption per GDP unit
actually climbed by 0.8% from a year ago.
Likewise, the government's push for housing-energy
saving has made little progress so far.
Ambitious plans The government
now demands that buildings whose construction
began after July 1 this year in six major cities
cut energy consumption by 65% from the level in
early 1980s, while those in the rest of the
country should aim to cut it by half.
Moreover, one-fourth of the existing
buildings across the country will be renovated to
save energy in next five years. This is expected
the save the energy equivalent of burning 130
million tons of coal, but it also means 2 trillion
yuan (US$252 billion) of investment at least.
The government warns that if the current
situation is not changed, housing-energy
consumption will grow three times as fast as now
by 2020, as the country is building 1.6 billion to
2 billion square meters of housing annually, more
than any other country in the world.
To
attain its conservation goal, the government has
been drafting new laws and regulations. The latest
one, being drafted by the State Council, includes
a comprehensive set of rules covering market
threshold for developers, old-architecture
transformation, housing management, and
power-efficiency assessment. Another regulation
implemented in August bans developers of
power-wasting buildings from applying for any
architecture award.
"The key to developing
power-efficient buildings is the cost," said Du
Tong, a construction engineer based in Beijing. An
energy-efficient building will cost the developer,
and consequently the homebuyer, about 10% more
than a building without energy-saving systems. But
so far Chinese consumers are yet to give their nod
for the additional cost.
On the contrary,
bay windows and large windows are the new trend in
architecture to satisfy occupants' demand for good
views. And to reduce costs, developers often build
as many apartments as possible on a land lot,
resulting in poor ventilation.
China
implemented its first regulation on
power-efficient housing back in 1986. It aimed to
reduce the power consumption in homes in northern
China by 30%, a standard raised to 50% in 1996.
Regulations about energy-efficient housing in
central and southern China were implemented by
2004. But the regulations have not produce
concrete results because of weak supervision. Lack
of incentives for energy-saving housing and low
public awareness of energy efficiency add to the
difficulty of cutting power consumption in
housing.
Despite its long annual exposure
to sunshine, even China's south seldom uses solar
power in housing. Southern China's boom city of
Shenzhen produces more than 70% of the
solar-energy or photo-electric products in the
world, but most of the products are for export,
not domestic use.
Although the regulation
on civil construction says constructors can be
fined up to 500,000 yuan ($63,000) for building
energy-inefficient housing, few developers are
ever actually fined for doing so. As the
supervisors are often hired by the developers,
they will not point out the problem even if the
construction does not comply with the original
design.
"There are few punitive measures
against energy-inefficient housing, or rewards
toward energy-saving housing. Even though the
extra cost for an efficient building is only about
50 yuan per square meter, the developer [will] not
do it, because the public only cares about price,"
said Hao Guangshe, a Shandong-based developer.
But it is hoped that with increasing
public awareness and the government's growing
determination, the new regulations will achieve
better results. In Shanghai, special funds will be
established for innovations in improved energy
efficiency in buildings and in renovating old
buildings. The city of Beijing is blacklisting the
10 buildings with the lowest energy efficiency.
In Shenzhen, a new local regulation will
be implemented on November 1 banning outright the
construction of energy-inefficient housing. The
regulation also requires all new housing under 12
stories to be equipped with solar water-heating
system unless specifically exempted.
Some
high-notch energy-efficient buildings have emerged
in China's larger and richer cities. Fengshan
International Apartments, a high-end real-estate
project in Beijing, claimed to be the first
mainland real-estate project that did not need an
air conditioner or heating system. The project has
attracted thousands of visitors since it was
completed in 2002. It was sold at about 10,000
yuan per square meter, a high price for that year.
In Shanghai, a joint-venture developer is
building the nation's first office cluster
adopting energy-saving technologies. The project,
named Pujiang Zhigu, earned a certificate for
energy efficiency from the German government.
So far, the energy-efficiency technologies
and methods have been restricted to high-end
projects, but with stricter enforcement of
regulations, it is expected that more and more
buildings will become energy-efficiency over time.
This year "signals the real start of the
market for energy-efficient buildings, and the
market will greatly expand during the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games", said Li Shuren, an official with
the China Real Estate and Housing Research
Association.
Chou Baoxing, vice minister
of construction, expects the renovation of old
buildings for energy-saving creates business
opportunities worth 2.6 trillion yuan.
The
big market means a huge demand for heat-insulation
walls, glass, energy-saving bulbs, and
energy-saving heaters, as well as good designers.
In fact, developers are already recruiting senior
engineers with the experience in energy-efficient
buildings with a high annual salary of 600,000
yuan.
Stephen Wong is a
freelance writer based in Shanghai.
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