Abstract
The energy consumption and carbon emission of Chinese households is growing rapidly and will continue to do so for the near future. Currently, Chinese energy policies mainly focus on the industrial sector instead of the residential sector. Among industrialized countries, Germany has performed relatively well in the residential sector, which can provide valuable lessons for China. This paper investigates the policy-making, implementation, and resulting patterns of Chinese and German residential energy policies from a multi-level perspective. The policy system study provides a holistic view over the factors influencing residential energy sustainability. The main findings are: (1) the German residential energy policy system follows a hybrid policy model, combining top-down and bottom-up policy designs, with more demand-side or market-oriented policies, and a high level of public participation, resulting in remarkable headway toward sustainability in the residential energy sector; and (2) the Chinese energy policy system is characterized by top-down, supply-side oriented market policies with limited public participation. The policy implication of this study for China is to shift its top-down policy paradigm to a hybrid policy model that facilitates public participation in the residential energy sector.
Highlights
Residential energy sustainability is critical in tackling climate change
Residential energy consumption made up about 11.7% of the total energy consumption in China in 2015, and it is estimated that residential energy consumption will continue to grow
To have more successful public policies in residential energy sector, China can learn from the German hybrid policy system, which embraces various actors from different levels, and allows actors, such as the private and households, at the bottom or micro level to exert their influence on the meso and macro levels
Summary
Residential energy sustainability is critical in tackling climate change. The residential sector is one of the main energy consumption sectors, besides transportation, industries, service, and the commercial sector. One strong explanatory factor for these huge differences in residential energy consumption across industrialized countries is the diverging national energy policies, how it is implemented and the resulting policy paradigms. This article argues that the pattern of national energy policy systems matters in achieving residential energy sustainability. China and Germany adopted different policies tools to increase the share of renewable energy sources in energy consumption and energy conservation in the residential sector. This article compares their policy-making, implementation, and results in the renewable energy and energy saving in the residential sector and analyzes the differentiated patterns in terms of political, economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability. This article illustrates the possible implications for China and the potential of bilateral cooperation between the two countries
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