Abstract
Building lifetime and stock turnover are both key determinants in modelling building energy and carbon. However in China, aside from anecdotal claims that urban residential buildings are generally short-lived, there are no recent official statistics, and empirical data are extremely limited. We present a system dynamics model where survival analysis is used to characterise the dynamic interplay between new construction, aging, and demolition of residential buildings in urban China. The uncertainties associated with building lifetime were represented using a Weibull distribution, whose shape and scale parameters were calibrated based on official statistics on floor area up to 2006. The calibrated Weibull lifetime distribution allowed us to estimate the dynamic stock turnover of Chinese urban residential buildings for 2007 to 2017. We find that the average lifetime of urban residential buildings was around 34 years, and the overall residential stock size reached 23.7 billion m2 in 2017. The resultant age-specific sub-stocks provide a baseline for the overall stock, which—along with the calibrated Weibull lifetime distribution—can be used in further modelling and for analysis of policies to reduce the whole-life embodied and operational energy and CO2 emissions in Chinese residential buildings.
Highlights
As the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter worldwide [1,2,3,4], China’s progress along a low-carbon development pathway has a significant impact on global efforts towards climate change mitigation
Whilst the building stock has a fundamental impact on macro-level energy consumption and carbon emissions with significant policy implications, studies investigating the complexities and dynamics of building stock appear to be rather limited—substantially less than the wide range of studies at the individual building level
To explore various scenarios of carbon emissions from Chinese buildings through 2050, Yang et al [45] applied a grey modelling technique based on the historical per-capita floor area data published in past China Statistical Yearbooks to forecast the future trend of building stock size for the period up to 2020 and scenario analysis for the period beyond 2020
Summary
As the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter worldwide [1,2,3,4], China’s progress along a low-carbon development pathway has a significant impact on global efforts towards climate change mitigation. The expansion of building stock far outpaced the energy efficiency improvement gained from more stringent building design standards and enhanced performance of building service systems and equipment, thereby leading to continued increase in total energy consumption [12,13,14] This presents a critical challenge to the Chinese government’s pledge to peak its overall emissions by 2030 [15,16]. The high “turnover” rate reflects the fact that the building stock is being constantly rapidly replenished as a result of old buildings with short lifetimes being removed and new buildings being constructed to meet demands, as well as the great complexity and uncertainty associated with building-stock characteristics These have significant implications for stock-wide energy use and emissions over the medium- to long-term.
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