China’s existing buildings have an area in excess of 43 billion square metres. Most of them have poor insulation properties and less efficient heating/air conditioning systems than is the case with buildings in developed countries.
Recognising the opportunity for increasing energy efficiency and reducing emissions, the Chinese government has set an ambitious target of doing energy efficiency retrofitting on 150 million sq. m of residential buildings and 65 million sq. m of large-scale public buildings by 2010, and is providing subsidies of 45-55 Yuan per sq. metre to encourage the process.
To help encourage the take-up of this subsidy, a REEEP project has produced a Market Survey Report of market-based financing mechanisms and business models that can help accelerate the pace of energy efficiency retrofits. The study, which is in the Chinese language with an English summary, looks at the market potential of the northern heating areas of the country, and tracks the progress of each province in reaching the retrofit targets laid out in the 11th Five-Year Plan. It identifies three main mechanisms for promoting retrofits in large scale public buildings: 1) government financing, 2) owner financing and 3) ESCOs.
It is expected that the report will have a direct governmental and legislative effect, and that awareness of the mechanisms will be raised amongst governmental officials, energy experts, ESCOs, banks, utilities and other energy efficiency stakeholders in China.
