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BUILDING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN CHINA Ying Hua, Yang Hub, Wenshu Fanc a School of Architecture and Fine Art, Dalian University of Technology, No.2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, Liaoning, 116024, China b Chicago Bridge & Iron, 20 California, Suite 721, San Francisco, CA, 94111, U.S.A c Nexant, 101 2nd St, Suite 1000, San Francisco, CA, 94121, U.S.A ABSTRACT In this paper, the authors indicated the energy consumption issues and problems in China, through the statistical analysis of China’s recent energy consumption conditions. The authors then emphasized the necessity on the building energy efficiency through building energy efficiency regulations and design method implementations. In the end, the authors analyzed the building energy design methods with two case studies in Dalian, as an assessment on the building energy efficiency in China. The case studies include both Dalian International Conference Center and Dalian Wanda Center. To sum up, in order to achieve the building energy efficiency, China needs to establish a better energy efficiency market, and moderate the development and construction. It also needs a focus on the building life cycle analysis, as well as the occupancy behavior change. KEY WORDS China's energy consumption, Energy efficiency regulations, Energy efficiency design, Energy efficiency case study INTRODUCTION In the report of the government work delivered at the Twelfth National People’s Congress in 2014, Li Keqiang, the Premier of People’s Republic of China, pointed out that, in 2013, the economy in China was stable and improved, with the gross domestic product (GDP) reached 56.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.7% over the previous year. The total imports and exports exceeded a new high at 4 trillion US dollars. However, accompanied with the development, smog is also affecting larger parts of China and pollution becomes a major problem, which is nature's red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development. China must strengthen protection of the ecological environment, at the same time, change the way energy is produced and consumed. The government needs to commit to energy conservation and emissions reduction and impose a ceiling on total energy consumption. Premier Li’s report also deployed the general policy and guidance on the energy efficiency and emissions reduction in China from 2014 to future. ENERGY SITUATION AND ISSUES IN CHINA Energy Consumption Situation 1

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During the Eleventh five-year plan (2006 to 2010) period, China supported its 11.2% annual national economy growth with the6.6% annual energy consumption increase. The energy elasticity dropped from 1.04 of the Tenth five-year plan (2001 to 2005) period down to 0.59[1]. The smaller energy elasticity indicated that, in order to support the stable and rapid economic development, China well maintained the energy consumption intensity during the industrialization and urbanization. However, China is facing a greater challenge during the Twelfth five-year plan (2011 to 2015), with the energy demand growth now much more rigid due the continuous development. According to “BP Statistical Review of World Energy”, in 2013, China consumed 2.85 billion tons of oil equivalent primary energy, which was 22.4% of the world's total consumptions. Among all the primary energy consumptions in China, 1.93 billion tons of oil equivalent coal was consumed, which was 50.3% of the world's coal consumptions [2]. In short, China has less than 20% of world’s populations, however, consumes more than 20% of the world’s total primary energy. The nation is No.1 in CO2 emission, and generated 9.5 billion tons of CO2 in 2013[2]. Energy Consumption Issues First of all, China energy consumptions, rightly or wrongly, surpassed European Union in 2007, the United States of America in 2010 and the whole North America in 2013. It holds world’s No.1 record in energy consumption growth [3]. Secondly, China's energy consumption growth rate is significantly higher than the energy production rate, with the oil consumption rate much higher than the production rate. The insufficient domestic energy supply creates a conflict between economic and energy developments. In 2013, the China domestic energy production was 3.4 billion tons of coal equivalents, while the energy consumption is 3.75 billion tons of coal equivalents [4]. Thirdly, insufficient domestic oil and natural gas supplies negatively affect the nation’s energy security. Compared to 2012, in 2013, China imported 320 million tons of oil, an increase of 3.4%, 52.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas, an increase of 25.2%, and 330 million tons of coal, an increase of 13.4%. By the end of 2013, China's oil and gas external dependency were 58.4% and 30% [5]. Lastly, China consumes more than half of the world’s coal productions, which creates an unbalanced energy structure with high proportion of low quality energy and severe environmental pollution, together with grim production safety. In 2013, for the first time in 15 years, China did not record the world’s largest increase in coal production; Indonesia did. China became the world’s largest net coal importer in 2012[6]. The published “Twelfth five-year energy development plan” by the State Council in 2013, stated that the overall five-year energy consumptions from 2011 to 2015 must be limited to 4 billion tons of coal equivalent primary energy by the end of 2015. Although Chinese energy consumption growth dropped from 7.0% to 4.7% in 2013, which was well below its 10 year average8.6% [7], the remaining energy consumption incremental for 2014 and 2015 is only 250 million tons of coal equivalents. It is very important to execute energy efficiency to meet the Twelfth five-year energy development goal. ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDING REGULATIONS AND DESIGN Energy Efficient Building Regulations 2

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Building, industry and transportation energy efficiencies constitute the three priority areas of energy conservation in China. “2013 Statistics bulletin”, released by the national bureau of statistics showed that the proportion of the tertiary industry reached 46.1%, an increase of 1.5% over that in 2012, and 2.2% higher than the proportion of secondary industry, which was the first time the proportion of the tertiary industry was higher than that the second industry [8]. New completed residential areas are greatly increased on a yearly basis. In 2013, 3.9 billion square meters new residential areas were completed [9]. The data shows that the proportion of the industrial energy consumption has declined, while the proportion of the building energy consumption has been rising. In 2014, Jiang Minglin, consultant of the State Council, pointed out in the 17th China Beijing International High-tech Expo, China Energy Policy Forum, China's building energy consumption accounted for about 28% to 30% of the nation’s energy consumptions. In 2013 only, the building sector contributed1.05 billion tons to 1.128 billion tons of coal equivalent energy consumptions [10]. The building sector has become an important part of energy conservation and emissions reduction. It requires special attentions, since it has a profound impact on the nation’s sustainable development. Table I General Energy Efficient Building Regulation in China No.

Title

Publish

Implement

Date

Date

Note

1

Residential building thermal design regulation

1986

Ministry Standard

2

Residential building energy efficiency standard

1986

Ministry Standard

3

Heating ventilation and air conditioning design

1987

National standard

National standard

standard 4

Residential building thermal design regulation

1993

5

National conference on building energy

1996

efficiency 6

China energy conservation law

2007.10.28

2008.04. 1

The revision 1997.11.7 law

7

Comments on housing modernization promotion

1999.7.5

and residential building quality improvement 8

Residential building energy efficiency

2000.2.18

2000.10.1

2010.3.18

2010.8.1

management provisions 9

Design standard for energy efficiency of residential buildings in hot summer and cold winter zones

10

standard

JGJ134-2010

Design standard for energy efficiency of

2012.11.19

2013.4.1

residential buildings in hot summer and warm winter zones 11

12

standard

2005

National standard

GB50189-2005

Residential building energy efficiency regulations 3

Replace JGJ75-2003

JGJ75-2012

Design standard for energy efficiency of public buildings

Replace JGJ134-2001

2008.10.1

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Design standard for energy efficiency of

2010.3.18

DECEMBER 2015

2010.8.1

residential buildings in severe cold and cold zones 14

Replace JGJ26-95 standard

JGJ26-2010

Design standard for energy efficiency of residential buildings

DB21/T1476-2011

Local standard of 2011.7.22

2011.9.1

Liaoning province; Replace 2007 standard

15

Design standard for（65%）energy saving of public buildings

DB21/T1899-2011

Local standard of 2011.7.22

2011.9.1

Liaoning province; Replace 2007 standard

China’ energy-efficient building regulations since 1986 were summarized in Table 1. The table only provides the local regulations for Liaoning province, China (where the first author resides) at item No.14 and 15, while it omits the counterparts from other provinces, direct-controlled municipalities and other areas. In Liaoning province, from 2011, the local regulation explicitly stipulated that building heating, ventilating and air conditioning energy consumption in both new residential and non-residential buildings, must save 65% of the energy consumptions using 1980 decade regulation, a.k.a. “65% energy savings standard”. Currently, most places in China use “65% energy savings standard”, however, some areas still obey “50% energy savings standard”. Department of Housing and Urban Construction stated in the Twelfth five-year plan that, by 2015, all the new constructed buildings in China must obey at least “65% energy savings standard”, and 95% of the new constructions need to meet the mandatory standards. Energy Efficient Building Design China is divided into five thermal regions based on the climate characteristics, shown in Fig.1 below. They are severe cold region, cold region, hot summer and cold winter region, hot summer and warm winter region and temperate region. Different thermal regions need to implement the associated energy-efficient regulations in Table 1. The focus for each thermal region is quite different. For examples, severe cold region must fully meet winter insulation requirements; cold region needs also meet the winter insulation requirements, while some areas need to meet summer air conditioning requirements; hot summer and cold winter region needs to meet both summer air conditioning and winter insulation requirements; hot summer and warm winter region must fully meet summer air conditioning requirements; some areas in the temperate region should consider winter insulation requirement [11]. Take Dalian city as an example, the new non-residential buildings follow the “Public building 65% energy savings design standard” (DB21/T1899-2011), which requires that 1) the building shape factor (S) must not be bigger than 0.4; 2) the window to wall ratio must not be bigger than 0.7; if the building total area is larger than 20,000 m2 and conditioned by HVAC, the roof window area should not be larger than 30% of the total roof area, for other buildings, the roof window area should be limited to 20% of the total roof area; 3) the roof, exterior wall, exterior window must meet the required U-values. If one of the items cannot be met, a trade-off option analysis is required to determine the building envelope’s energy efficiency. In addition to meet the above mandatory standards, energy efficiency buildings should also embrace passive designs and renewable energy applications. 4

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Figure1 China Building Thermal Design Zones CASE STUDIES: ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS IN DALIAN Dalian International Conference Center Dalian International Conference Center, shown in Fig 2, locates at the central place of Dalian Dong gang business transformation area. It was designed in 2008, and construction completed in 2013. The total site area is 4.3 hectare, with building area 146,200 m2. The building utilizes steel and reinforced concrete structure style. It was designed by Austria architecture firm, Coop Himmerlblau, Dalian Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd, China J&A interior design co., LTD and German MBBM acoustic consultant company. Inside the building, there is one 3,000 m2 multifunctional hall, which can occupy 2,000 people for summer Davos meeting in Dalian, once every two years. The building also has six small-me dium conference halls and four multifunctional VIP halls and multimedia conference halls, together with one high standard theater, which can hold 1,600 people.

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Figure 2 Dalian International Conference Center Due to the complexity of building shape and large roof skylight area, a trade-off option analysis was performed by Tsinghua Sware Company. The result showed that the building envelope overall thermal properties meet the “65% energy savings standard”. The passive design was fully embodied in the following aspects: 

Reducing artificial lighting by day lighting design. The building envelop is a double-layer exterior wall, with the exterior wall penetrated metal panel (45% penetration rate to introduce day light), and interior wall glass or metal panel. The double-layer exterior wall can provide both day lighting and exterior shading. The roof is divided in three regions, with a total of 1,500 m2 614 daylight reflectors [12]. The reflectors were all designed at the best angles for diffuse daylight and aesthetics, which help enhance the interior lighting conditions and reduce the artificial lighting energy consumptions;



Reducing the air condition energy consumptions by natural ventilation design. The common area has an approximate volume of 420,000 m3, which was conditioned by natural ventilation, with air change rate 7 to 10 per hour, to meet the ventilation requirement. There are 240 m2 electric-powered blinds and 400 m2 electric-powered smoke exhaust windows on the roof [13]. When building energy management system detects the indoor CO2 level is higher than upper threshold, both windows will open. The fresh cool air can be introduced from the blinds, and indoor warm air is exhausted from top windows. The natural ventilation will reduce the air conditioning energy consumptions.



Reducing fossil fuel consumptions, by renewable energy design. The building is very close to East China Sea, thus water-source cooling design is utilized for renewable energy application. In winter and spring, the sea water temperature is stable and when the temperature is below 10 °C (50 °F), the chiller system can be fully shut down and the cold water is introduced to 6

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cool the building. During summer season, the sea water is utilized as a cooling source to damp the heat from chiller condensers. The chiller energy efficiency is much higher since the cooling water temperature is lower. The conference building also installed 120 kW photovoltaic panels on the roof [14], which directly provide electrical energy to the building and reduce grid electricity energy consumption. 

Reducing building energy consumptions by building energy management system. 95% of the logistics and office area use 7,554 LED lighting fixtures, 44.54% of the common area installed 5,552 LED lighting fixtures [15], and the exterior lighting also utilized LEDs. In addition, the building was monitored and controlled by the building energy management systems, which can transfer the instantaneous data to government energy control center.

Dalian Wanda Center Dalian Wanda Center, shown in Fig 3, was built adjacent to Dalian International Conference Center, which shares the same design and completion dates. The total site area is 2.32 hectare, with building area 209,000 m2. The building was designed by Japan M.A.O. Masters Architectural Office (Shanghai) and Dalian Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. The building utilizes steel and reinforced concrete structure style. It hosts the VIP guests for summer Davos meeting in Dalian. One building has a height of 149.5 m, with 36 floors of luxury hotels, the other one is 202.4m tall with 44 floors of offices, 4 floors of annex and 3 floors of basement.

Figure 3 Dalian Wanda Center

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Since Wanda Center has super high-rise buildings, due to the small shape factor, the building design is compliant with local public building energy efficiency standard. The other unique features are introduced below: 

Simplicity design with space optimization. The low levels (6 to 22 floors) of the hotel tower are five-star hotels, and the high levels (24 to 35 floors) are six-star hotels. In the low level, the space beneath the six-star hotel elevators is used for five-star hotel linen room. In the high level, the space above the five-star hotel elevators is then used for six-star hotel linen room. The optimized space utilization indirectly reduces the energy consumptions;



Reduce water consumption by waste water recycle. The hotel restrooms and restaurants utilize a large amount of water, which is treated and recycled for toilet, garage floor clean, exterior landscaping uses;



Reducing HVAC energy consumption with better indoor thermal comfort. Firstly, dual-fan AHUs are designed for ball rooms. During the transient seasons, to maximize the natural ventilation cooling, the chiller operation is much reduced. Because of the long period of the transient reason in Dalian, the guest rooms are designed with four-duct AHUs, dedicated supply and return for cooling and heating, can supply cooling and heating alternatively [16]. Secondly, the guest room lighting is controlled by the smart module, which has guest mode and sleep mode, etc. There are automatic indicators at the parking garages, to show the available parking lots. Thirdly, the mechanical room is close to the building load, which simplified the pipeline layout and save the total building costs.

CONCLUSIONS According to figures published by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), from 2009 to 2013, China's energy consumption per unit GDP fell by 2.2%, 4.01%, 2.01%, 3.6%, and 3.7%.In the first half of 2014, the economic growth was only 7.4%, while the energy consumption per GDP decreased by 4.2%, which was the biggest drop since the 2009. 4.2% reduction laid a good foundation to meet goal of annual 3.9% decrease in 2014[17]. The national residential building energy efficiency statistics has shown that, in 2013, due to the implementations of the mandatory regulations for all the new constructions, 8.8 billion m2 new residential buildings was completed, which was approximately 30% of the total residential area in China, and saving 80 million tons of coal equivalent primary energy[18]. However, the building energy efficiency in China still requires the attentions to solve the following issues: Firstly, building energy efficiency heavily relied on government promotions and reinforcement. The lack of building energy efficiency evaluation, third-party savings assessment and energy efficiency service companies, creates difficulties to promote building energy efficiency. Secondly, with the large population and limited resource in China, the government needs to pay special attention to modest and habitable living environment. The development and construction need to be moderate to avoid building demolition after only a few years’ use. It is also important 8

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to include the building waste disposal into the building energy efficiency management. Thirdly, in addition to the mandatory standards and passive designs, China also needs to focus on the energy efficiency management through the whole life of the buildings. It needs to strengthen the execution of energy consumption monitoring, and the energy audit systems for public buildings. Fourthly, China needs to improve the energy savings consciousness for the general civilians, and change behavior for energy savings. In the last, but not the least, improve existing building energy regulations, such as designing the regulation for temperate regions in China, which has huge energy savings potentials for China to achieve its energy efficiency goal. REFERENCES [1], [4], [9] “National Bureau of Statistics of China”, 2013 http://data.stats.gov.cn/workspace/index?m=hgnd [2] “China International Bidding”, 2012 http://www.chinabidding.com/jksb-detail-222924030.html [3], [6], [7] “BP Statistical Review of World Energy”, 2014 http://www.bp.com/zh_cn/china/reports-and-publications/bp_2014.html [5] “Ningbo Municipal Development & reform commission”, 2014 http://www.nbdpc.gov.cn/cat/cat2/con_2_33452.html [8] “China Industry Research Network”, 2014 http://www.chinairn.com/news/20140226/083629941.html [10] “China Coal Resource”, 2014 http://www.sxcoal.com/jnjp/3734291/articlenew.html [11] “National Technical Measures for Design of Civil Construction Special Edition-Energy Conservation: 2007”, Architecture: [M], China Planning Press: Beijing, 2007, 03:5. [12], [13], [14], [15] Cui, Y., Zhao T., Liu C., 2013, “Architecture in City, city's Epitome in Architecture Design for Dalian International Conference Center [J]”, Architectural Journal. [16] Jin, JY., Tong, BS., 2013, “Simple and Efficient Hotel Experience from Dalian Wanda Center Design [J]”, Architectural Journal. [17] “Huaxun Finance”, 2014 http://finance.591hx.com/article/2014-08-15/0000417982s.shtml [18] “The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China”, 2014 http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-04/25/content_2666605.htm SOURCES FOR FIGURES AND TABLE: Figure 1 was cited from http://image.haosou.com/i?src=360pic_normal&q Figure 2 and 3 were taken by the authors Table 1 was created by the authors CONTACT INFOMRATION Prof. Ying Hu School of Architecture and Fine Art 9

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Dalian University of Technology No.2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian City, Liaoning Province, Liaoning 116024 China Email:[email protected] Phone(Fax)：0411－84708530 13190123969 Yang Hu, Ph.D., LEED AP O+M Senior Technical Project Manager Chicago Bridge & Iron, 20 California, Suite 721, San Francisco, California, USA, 94111, [email protected] Wenshu Fan, PE, CEM, CDCEP, LEED AP O+M Senior Project Engineer Nexant, 101 2nd St, STE 1000, San Francisco, California, USA, 94105, [email protected]

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