The galloping double-digit growth in the last five years has more than ever cornered China into a massive energy search to feed its booming economy. In drafting its energy strategies, the Chinese Government has attached unprecedented importance to preventing wasteful economic growth that could affect the country's long-term development.

To prevent this from happening, the Chinese Government put forward in March 2006 a historic goal of reducing China's energy consumption by 20 percent over the five years between 2006 and 2010.

As the world's second largest energy consumer, China has a pretty low per capita possession of energy resources, which is about 40 percent of the world average level. Moreover, China's energy efficiency is only 33 percent, about the level of industrial countries 20 years ago. For example, in Beijing the heating per square meter of indoor space for one winter costs the energy equivalent of 22.4 kilograms of standard coal while it is only 9 kilograms in Germany. Many energy experts believe that enhancing energy efficiency has become an urgent task for the Chinese Government over the next few years.

Energy-efficient buildings

As a matter of fact, among China's soaring energy consumption, an increasing proportion comes from the skyrocketing number of high-rise buildings. It has been calculated that the ratio of energy consumption used in construction against China's total energy consumption has risen from 10 percent at the end of the 1970s to around 30 percent now. This proportion is expected to surpass 35 percent in the near future. If indirect energy consumption is included, construction makes up over 40 percent of total energy consumption.

Gu Yunchang, deputy head of China Real Estate Association, said as the largest real estate developer in the world, China constructs a total of 1.6 billion to 2 billion square meters of buildings of all types every year, surpassing that of all industrial nations added together. Of all the new buildings, only 10 to 15 percent meet the national standard for energy-efficient buildings, while around 80 percent are serious energy wasters.

According to Vice Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing, China's building energy consumption level is twice that of industrial countries.

Statistics from the Ministry of Construction indicate China has completed the construction of 1.06 billion square meters of energy-efficient buildings, which account for only 7 percent of all existing floor area. Construction experts estimate that if the current construction structure remains unchanged, China will have 70 billion square meters of energy-wasting floor area by 2020. In the case of China, development of technologies for energy-saving buildings should be a strategy of national energy safety.

Deng Xiaomei, who has completed her post-doctoral studies on project management in public institutions at Tsinghua University, said one important reason that Chinese buildings are largely wasteful is that the developers of landmark buildings fanatically pursue exotic designs, new fashions and height while totally ignoring the running costs of their buildings. For example, in the last few years, installing glass-curtain walls has become a fashion among China's architectural designers. Many property developers have required the installment of glass-curtain walls, unawere of the fact that heat radiates through the walls easily driving up energy consumption. Furthermore, the stagnant airflow in these buildings means air conditioning has to be used throughout the year, leading to further waste of energy.

In order to realize its goal of reducing energy consumption, the Chinese Government has on the one hand closed down high-pollution, high-energy-consumption plants that fail to meet environmental protection standards; and on the other hand advocated the use of energy-efficient construction technologies.

"Enhancing energy efficiency in buildings is not only the requirement to transform the growth model of the construction sector but also the requirement to guarantee energy security," said Vice Minister of Construction Huang Wei.

Giving incentives to business sector

It has been a long time since the Chinese Government emphasized the importance of building energy efficiency for the first time. In 1986, the government promulgated the first regional standard on designing energy-saving buildings and required the northern part of China, which experiences extreme winter and summer temperatures, to promote energy-friendly construction technologies to the public. This policy was introduced 13 years after the first similar proposal in an industrial country in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.