Policy on energy consumption of district heating in northern China: Historical evidence, stages, and measures

Abstract

Energy consumption in residential heating is significant to realizing building energy savings and emission reductions. There are the largest heating markets formed in northern China, where heating dominates in building energy consumption. Two problems were identified in this work, deviations in policy diffusion and the completeness of energy consumption data. In this study, four standards on heating in China are summarized in relation to different historical stages. By combining the historical energy consumption data with a questionnaire survey, it indicates actual heating energy consumption is far from the expectation of standards put in the past. The energy use intensity of surveyed boiler systems is 12.46 kgce/m2. For these situations, energy saving percentage, used widely in building energy policy in China, needs to be abolished and a scientific statistic indicators on heating according to the new standard should be established. In addition, only constant supervision and timely adjustment of policy implementation based on monitoring energy heating use could make heating policy well-enforced. The results of this study may be useful for energy policy researchers in other regions.