The energy situation and its sustainable development strategy in China

The paper briefly summarizes China’s energy situation and sustainable development strategy as they were by 2009. The energy consumption in 2009 is reported to be 3.1 billion tons standard coal equivalent, 1/7 of the world total, 6.3% higher than in the year 2008, and its share of world CO₂ emissions increased rapidly to 20.3% in 2006. These trends are most likely to continue with China’s plan to accomplish its social and economy development goals. To address these problems and also respond to increasing world pressure for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the Chinese government plans and has legislated promotion of energy conservation, efficiency, renewable energy technologies and use, and reduction of energy-related environmental impacts to reduce energy intensity by 20% during the 2006-2010 period, and to reduce the CO₂ emission/GDP ratio by 40-45% by 2020 relative to 2005. China is facing severe energy-related challenges that conflict resources shortages with the planned rapid economic development, energy use with the related environmental pollution, and new technology with the old production/consumption patterns. It is recognized that energy development must, however, follow a sustainable path to coordinate economy growth, social development, and environmental protection.     

Potential energy savings and environmental impact by implementing energy efficiency standard for household refrigerators in China

With the rapid economic growth and improvement in standard of living, Chinese people are employing more and more household appliances to make their living convenient and comfortable, of which refrigerators are indispensable. Because refrigerators operate continuously irrespective of seasons and regions, the total electricity consumption of refrigerators is huge and consequently causes severe energy-related environmental issues. China has been paying more and more attention to this and issued a national energy efficiency standard, GB12021.2-2003, for refrigerators. This paper first describes the standard briefly. Then it develops a mathematic model to evaluate the potential energy savings and environmental impacts of the standard. The estimated results indicate implementing the standard will save large energy, as well as benefit greatly to environment. Thus, it is very necessary to implement energy efficiency standard for refrigerators in China.     

Potential energy savings and environmental impacts of energy efficiency standards for vapor compression central air conditioning units in China

Owing to the rapid development of economy and the stable improvement of people's living standard, central air conditioning units are broadly used in China. This not only consumes large energy, but also results in adverse energy-related environmental issues. Energy efficiency standards are accepted effective policy tools to reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Recently, China issued two national energy efficiency standards, GB19577-2004 and GB19576-2004, for vapor compression central air conditioning units for the first time. This paper first reviews the two standards, and then establishes a mathematic model to evaluate the potential energy savings and environmental impacts of the standards. The estimated results indicate implementing these standards will save massive energy, as well as benefit greatly to the environment. Obviously, it is significant to implement energy efficiency standards for central air conditioning units in China.     

Information inefficiency and willingness-to-pay for energy-efficient technology: A stated preference approach for China Energy Label

The paper examines the extent to which consumers' willingness-to-pay for energy-efficient room air conditioners may be altered by correcting the information inefficiency on the China Energy Label. The data are collected from a discrete choice experiment with two alternatives (variable-speed and constant-speed room air conditioners) characterized by attributes of brand, purchase price and energy grade. Three versions of the questionnaires with choice sets differing only in energy consumption indicators were distributed randomly to 1602 potential consumers in Nanjing, China and a sample of 1569 was obtained after dropping missing data. The analysis with multinomial and mixed logit models reveal that the price premium that consumers are willing to pay for a variable-speed room AC over a constant-speed room AC increases significantly when energy consumption information becomes comparable and additional energy-related information is provided. Furthermore, the impact of information on WTP varies under different energy-saving scenarios. It is suggested that China Energy Label should correct information inefficiency by adopting same energy indicators for room ACs with different technologies and providing energy consumption information based on different climate zones.     

Government management and implementation of national real-time energy monitoring system for China large-scale public building

The supervision of energy efficiency in government office buildings and large-scale public buildings (GOBLPB) is the main embodiment for government implementation of Public Administration in the fields of resource saving and environmental protection. It is significant for China government to achieve the target: reducing building energy consumption by 11 million ton standard coal before 2010. In the framework of a national demonstration project concerning the energy management system, Shenzhen Municipality has been selected for the implementation of the system. A data acquisition system and a methodology concerning the energy consumption of the GOBLPB have been developed. This paper summarizes the various features of the system incorporated into identifying the building consumes and energy saving potential. This paper also defines the methods to achieve the real-time monitoring and diagnosis: the meters installed at each building, the data transmitted through internet to a center server, the analysis and unification at the center server and the publication through web. Furthermore, this paper introduces the plans to implement the system and to extend countrywide. Finally, this paper presents some measurements to achieve a common benefit community in implementation of building energy efficiency supervisory system on GOBLPB in its construction, reconstruction or operation stages.     

我国工业节能现状调研和对策

近年来我国一次能源的消费持续快速增长,尤其是工业领域能耗巨大,约占我国总能耗的70%,能源供应形势严峻。针对目前我国以化石能源消耗为主的能耗结构,本文在用能现状分析的基础上,着重从科学用能的角度提出了节能降耗的关键技术路线,主要包括热能的梯级利用、能源-资源的综合利用、动力机械节能、余能的回收利用等,同时探讨了依靠良好的政策管理、积极的示范推广来实现节能的目的。     

产业和能源消费结构调整对单位产值能耗影响分析

我国正处在调结构、转方式的关键时期,研究产业和能源消费结构变化对单位产值能耗的影响具有较强的现实意义。本文对比分析了我国和美国、日本、德国产业结构、能源消费结构与单位产值能耗的变化规律,研究了产业结构和能源消费结构变化对单位产值能耗的影响,总结了日本节能管理对降低单位产值能耗的作用,提出在优化产业、能源消费结构的同时,加强节能管理是降低我国单位产值能耗的现实选择。     

节能减排目标下北京能源消费布局优化分析

随着北京经济的快速发展,能源消费增长迅猛,但环境问题也格外突出,当前最现实、最根本的出路是节能减排。本文分析了北京市能源消费强度和能源消费结构,以及各种能源消费对环境的影响程度,在此基础上,提出节能减排目标下北京市能源消费布局的优化方向。     

Driving forces behind the stagnancy of China’s energy-related CO2 emissions from 1996 to 1999: the relative importance of structural change,intensity change and scale change

It is noteworthy that income elasticity of energy consumption in China shifted from positive to negative after 1996, accompanied by an unprecedented decline in energy-related CO₂ emissions. This paper therefore investigate the evolution of energy-related CO₂ emissions in China from 1985 to 1999 and the underlying driving forces, using the newly proposed three-level “perfect decomposition” method and provincially aggregated data. The province-based estimates and analyses reveal a “sudden stagnancy” of energy consumption, supply and energy-related CO₂ emissions in China from 1996 to 1999. The speed of a decrease in energy intensity and a slowdown in the growth of average labor productivity of industrial enterprises may have been the dominant contributors to this “stagnancy.” The findings of this paper point to the highest rate of deterioration of state-owned enterprises in early 1996, the industrial restructuring caused by changes in ownership, the shutdown of small-scale power plants, and the introduction of policies to improve energy efficiency as probable factors. Taking into account the characteristics of those key driving forces, we characterize China's decline of energy-related CO₂ emissions as a short-term fluctuation and incline to the likelihood that China will resume an increasing trend from a lower starting point in the near future.     

中外能源环境税比较与启示

能源活动引发的环境问题已日益威胁到人类的生存。基于这一现实,发达国家已经开始采取各种政策手段去调节能源活动主体的生产和消费行为。在众多政策手段中,能源环境税收以其对市场的扭曲程度小、对提高能源使用效率的刺激作用强、对污染行为的调控力度大等优势成为环境管理的热点。本文首先阐述了能源环境税收的基本结构,在此基础上通过对比发达国家和中国的能源环境税收体系和政策,探讨了其成功经验对我国的启示。     

Rural household energy consumption with the economic development in China: stages and characteristic indices

This paper discusses history variance and general features on rural household energy consumption with the economic development in China. Energy shortage has been a long-standing problem in rural areas of China. The average effective energy consumption was 0.46–0.54 kgce per day per household in the 1960s and 1970s. The reason for this is that the rural household energy supply mainly relies on the available amounts of local natural energy resources. The problem of cooking fuel shortage was basically solved in the early 1980s since more straw and stalks were produced due to the rapid development of agriculture. The process of energy commercialization also started from the early 1980s due to the availability of coal, fuel oil and other energy sources in the market, and the reconstruction of rural power supply network. Energy consumption was 369.8 kgce per capita with 30% of commercial energy consumption and the effective heat per capita per day was 0.64 kgce in 1995. A closer relationship was found between household energy consumption level/structure and family income along with the economic development. This paper analyzed the rural household energy consumption of three typical regions, i.e., out-of-poverty, well-off and rich regions, in terms of effective heat per capita per day, percentage of commercial energy consumption in total effective heat, electricity consumption per capita and room temperature of northern areas in winter.     

降低CO_2排放的中国能源发展路径分析

低碳经济发展越来越多地受到世界各国的广泛关注。环境、气候变化问题,已经成为整个人类面临的最严峻挑战。本文通过分析中国CO2排放的基本状况,并运用计量经济模型,对中国能源消费的环境效应影响、中国能源消费产生的CO 2的影响因素进行定量化分析,探讨了中国能源行业高耗能、外部不经济的主要因素。最后,提出了适合中国可行的降低CO 2排放的能源发展路径。     

Challenges of rapid economic growth in China: Reconciling sustainable energy use,environmental stewardship and social development

China aims at quadrupling per-capita GDP by 2020 compared to the year 2000. Without any energy and environmental policy measures, this tremendous economic growth would be associated with a quadrupling of primary energy consumption up to 6.3 billion tons of standard coal equivalents (sce) and energy-related CO₂-emissions of 13.9 billion tons Against this background, this paper is to set China's need to implement its sustainable development strategy into the quantitative context of the countries economic development and subsequent economic growth-related environmental problems. China is urgently searching for a way to ease the negative implications of economic growth and has committed itself to achieve a level of 3.0 billion ton sce primary energy consumption in 2020. As a consequence, the macro-economic energy intensity has to be reduced by 53% by 2020. A reduction of 53% by 2020 would lead to an energy intensity level 30% points below the year-2000 level of developed countries. As for natural resources, the expected economic growth will lead to an increase of crude oil net-imports up to 455 million ton sce in 2020 and 650 million ton sce in 2030. As for regional income distribution, economic growth helped to decrease existing inequities.     

An investigation into the present situation and characteristics of china's energy consumption

The present situation of China's energy consumption and its composition in the past decade is introduced in this paper. The characteristics of energy consumption in China are: energy sources are mainly supplied domestically; coal predominates in the composition of energy consumption (average 725%); industrial energy consumption takes the largest proportion of the final energy consumption (average 65.6%); the utilization efficiency of energy is low; serious environmental pollution is caused by coal combustion. It is necessary to conduct technology innovation for energy conservation because of the low efficiency utilization of energy by appliances and the backwardness of industrial technologies. China must carry out continuously the principle ‘lay equal stress on development and conservation and give priority to conservation in the near future’ with the idea that the economy will have a high growth rate.     

Energy embodied in the international trade of China: An energy input–output analysis

Growing international trade has not only positively affected the People’s Republic of China’s (China’s) economic development, but also expanded the exportation of energy embodied in goods during their production. This energy flow out will pose risks to China’s rational utilization of natural resources as well as environmental protection. In this paper, we evaluate the energy embodied in goods produced in China during 1992–2005 and use input–output structural decomposition analysis to identify five key factors causing the changes of energy embodied in exports. (Direct primary energy efficiency, primary energy consumption structure, structure of intermediate inputs, structure of exports, and scale of exports.) For the three sub-periods of 1992–1997, 1997–2002, and 2002–2005, results show that China is a net exporter of energy, and the energy embodied in exports tends to increase over time. The expanding total volume of exports and increasing exports of energy-intensive goods tend to enlarge the energy embodied in exports within all three sub-periods, but these driving forces were offset by a considerable improvement of energy efficiency and changes in primary energy consumption structure from 1992 to 2002 and the effects of structure of intermediate input only in the sub-period from 1992 to 1997. From 2002 to 2005, the sharp augmentation of energy embodied in exports was driven by all the five factors. Our research has practical implications for the Chinese economy. Results of this study suggest that the energy embodied in trade should receive special attentions in energy policies design to limit the energy resource out-flow and pollution generation.     

Energy efficiency supervision strategy selection of Chinese large-scale public buildings

This paper discusses energy consumption, building development and building energy consumption in China, and points that energy efficiency management and maintenance of large-scale public buildings is the breakthrough point of building energy saving in China. Three obstacles are lack of basic statistics data, lack of service market for building energy saving, and lack of effective management measures account for the necessity of energy efficiency supervision for large-scale public buildings. And then the paper introduces the supervision aims, the supervision system and the five basic systems’ role in the supervision system, and analyzes the working mechanism of the five basic systems. The energy efficiency supervision system of large-scale public buildings takes energy consumption statistics as a data basis, Energy auditing as a technical support, energy consumption ration as a benchmark of energy saving and price increase beyond ration as a price lever, and energy efficiency public-noticing as an amplifier. The supervision system promotes energy efficiency operation and maintenance of large-scale public building, and drives a comprehensive building energy saving in China.     

影响全国与北京工业能源消费的关键要素对比分析

全国能源强度2002年开始上升,北京能源强度却一直呈现下降态势;这不仅和北京第三产业快速发展相关,而且北京工业能源强度也保持了下降趋势。基于对数均值迪氏指数分解法,将能源消费分解成规模效应、结构效应和效率效应,对1998～2006年的北京及全国工业能源消费量进行了分解及对比分析。研究表明,效率效应对全国工业能源消费下降起到了比较显著的作用,而结构效应和效率效应共同促使北京的能源消费降低。与全国相比,北京大力促进高科技产业的发展,控制黑色金属冶炼及压延加工业、化学工业等高耗能工业的发展,是其工业能源强度迅速降低的一个重要原因。最后,分析了北京能源强度快速下降对全国的启示,并提出了全国能源消费进一步降低的政策建议。     

环境质量约束下的中国能源需求量研究

本文通过建立向量自回归(VAR)模型,研究了经济增长、环境质量和能源消费三者之间的长期均衡关系,并对未来五年的二氧化碳排放量、能源消费量和GDP进行了动态预测。建立了经济发展的能源需求模型和环境约束下的能源消费模型,得出经济产出、能源消费及能源强度三个变量之间及二氧化碳排放量、能源消费及碳强度三个变量之间的长期均衡关系,在此基础上预测未来五年我国能源最优消费量数据。     

Energy conservation and emission reduction policies for the electric power industry in China

Because of China's increasingly limited energy supplies and serious environmental pollution, much attention has been paid to conserving energy and reducing emissions to help the country's economy achieve sustainable development. As the electric power industry is the largest consumer of coal resources in China and also emits high levels of air pollutants each year, the Chinese government has enacted many technical and economic policies for energy conservation and emission reduction in the last few years. These policies are summarized in this paper, along with relevant laws and medium- and long-term plans, all of which address ideas such as adjusting the power generation mix, promoting demand-side management, introducing energy-efficient scheduling, and installing desulfurization units. The paper also assesses the results of these policies by analyzing several key indicators of energy consumption and emissions. The analysis shows that although some progress has been made in conserving energy and reducing emissions, substantial work is still required for China to catch up with developed countries. Some suggestions for future work are provided.     

Energy and environmental implications of copper production

Primary copper production is a major activity in the mining sector. It is highly energy-intensive, ranking third in specific energy consumption (SEC) among the five major basic metals (aluminum, copper, iron, lead and zinc) and poses important environmental hazards. We examine the large discrepancy between theoretical (from thermodynamics) and actual (from empirical data) SECs and then describe relevant environmental issues, focusing on the most significant energy-related environmental impacts of primary copper production with emphasis on greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. An example of GHG energy-related abatement that concurrently improves energy use is presented.