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Abstract: The pulp and paper industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries worldwide. In 2007, it accounted for 5% of total global industrial energy consumption and 2% of direct industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. An energy audit is a primary step toward improving energy efficiency at the facility level. This paper describes a plant-wide energy audit aimed at identifying energy conservation and CO2 mitigation opportunities at a paper mill in Guangdong province, China. We describe the energy audit methods, relevant Chinese standards, methods of calculating energy and carbon indicators, baseline energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the audited paper mill, and nine energy-efficiency improvement opportunities identified by the audit. For each of the nine options, we evaluate the energy conservation and associated CO2 mitigation potential. The total technical energy conservation potential for these nine opportunities is 967.8terajoules (TJ), and the total CO2 mitigation potential is equal to 93,453tonnes CO2 annually, representing 14.4% and 14.7%, respectively, of the mill’s total energy consumption and CO2 emissions during the audit period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Coal mining not only produces, but also consumes a large amount of energy. Coal production has an extremely high energy efficiency potential, and benchmarking is critical to discover this potential. To address problems such as ambiguity of coal production (e.g. underground mining), benchmarking range and absence of both indicators and standards for energy efficiency benchmarking, this paper makes use of product-based and process-based benchmarking. These two techniques are used to construct a benchmarking system for coal production with high energy efficiency, and improve the standards used at the eight coal mines owned by the Yankuang Group. Comparison and analysis of benchmarking in enterprises indicates that energy use during raw coal production could be reduced by 22.77%. Across China energy savings from coal production could reach 15.98–32.98 Mtce, with an equivalent 42–87 Mt of CO 2 emissions saved. Lastly, this paper provides measures to improve coal production energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy conversion efficiency of coal utilization is a focal point in modern energy management practices and in academic literature. This paper explores life cycle energy efficiency of coal (LEEC), which encompasses six distinct stages from the design of coal mines to the comprehensive reuse of resources. First, the study analyzes improvements to the evaluation of efficiencies in energy systems. Secondly, it proposes a multi-stage energy efficiency analysis and constructs an innovative LEEC model for coal exploitation and utilization. Thirdly, the energy efficiency of coal exploitation and utilization was evaluated, and found that total efficiency in China increased from 33.11% in 2010 to 37.69% in 2014, saving 126 Mtce of energy. Finally, this study found that mine design is the most important stage in improving energy efficiency, followed by the coal processing stage. Moreover, we found that coal processing has an indirect contribution to other stages in the life cycle utilization of coal, such as reducing transportation capacity. The primary research contribution is the development of a comprehensive LEEC model for the entire life cycle of coal, rather than just single-stage evaluation. This lays the foundation for further studies on energy efficiency of industrial chains and across entire systems. • Exploration of energy efficiency across the entire coal life cycle. • The energy efficiency of coal exploitation and utilization increased annually. • Analysis shows the implicit contribution of coal processing to life cycle. • Mine design is a crucial stage for overall life cycle energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Examine the coal use, CO 2 and pollutant emissions characteristics of China's wind-coal power system. • Model the impacts of wind penetration on them with high resolution output data. • Suggest future dispatch study from economical and environmental perspectives. Abstract China's power supply structure is dominated by coal-fired power. As China's renewable power expands, coal-fired power units are required to improve flexibility to balance power system. However, more flexible operation of coal power units increases energy consumption and pollutant emissions. This paper examines the energy efficiency, CO 2 and pollutant emissions characteristics of China's generic wind-coal combined power generation system, and discusses pollution-minimizing dispatch strategies by modeling three hypothetical scenarios of wind-coal combined power generation systems. For day-scale analyses, we find expected displacement rates of coal consumption and CO 2 emission decrease by wind fraction rate, indicating reduced energy savings from wind power per unit of increase in wind capacity. For NO x emission, we find that expected displacement rate reaches maximum value of 112% when wind fraction rate is equal to 0.27.For week-scale analysis, we simulate the coal consumption rate and emission factors with and without an operation of shutdown and startup of coal power units in the system. We suggest future study on dispatch decisions of startup/shutdown of coal power units to optimize power generation economically and environmentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving energy efficiency helps achieve energy conservation and emission reduction. Examining whether China's SO2 trading emission system (TES) reform can enhance energy efficiency will provide empirical evidence for the institutional benefit of market-oriented environmental regulation in environmental governance. This paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the effect of SO2 TES on energy efficiency using panel data from 285 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2018. The empirical results indicate that: (1) SO2 TES significantly promoted green total factor energy efficiency and reduced energy intensity. This conclusion is still valid after the prerequisite assumption test and robustness test. (2) SO2 TES significantly promotes local energy efficiency and has significant spatial spillover effects on surrounding cities. (3) Promoting green technological progress, resource allocation, and curbing energy consumption, are the primary mechanisms for SO2 TES to improve energy efficiency. (4) SO2 TES's improvement in energy efficiency comes more from eastern, developed, small, resource-based, and non-old industrial cities. • SO2 trading emissions system (TES) improves energy efficiency. • TES has a spatial spillover effect on nearby cities. • Green innovation, resource allocation and energy saving effects are the channels. • The effect of the TES on energy efficiency is heterogeneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy-saving and emission-reduction performance of electric vehicle is closely related to its charging method and operation mode. In order to enhance the energy-saving and emission-reduction effect of electric vehicles, this paper develops a real-time battery swap pricing model for electric taxis in China from the perspective of system. The charging and swapping system covers various stakeholders who have significant impacts on battery swap pricing. So the proposed model includes five modules: power grid load monitoring, generator set dispatch, battery swapping station operation, electric taxi driver response and evaluation of all stakeholders' benefits. To reduce the carbon emissions of electric taxis' energy source and maximize the global benefits to all stakeholders, authors consider four battery swap pricing scenarios and two charging strategies for battery swapping station, and design a battery swap pricing mechanism in China according to the analysis results. The simulation results demonstrate that battery swap pricing based on a peak-valley time-of-use tariff with a decentralized charging strategy has the greatest energy efficiency and economic effects which can enhance 45371.15 kg carbon emissions reduction and 48220.86 yuan combine benefits to all stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy-intensive firms are confronted with increasing pressure to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. This paper explores the relationship between the energy efficiency and financial performance of a sample of firms in China based on a panel dataset for the period 2010-2014. Six financial indicators representing the benefits of different stakeholders are used in the analysis. Our empirical results show that energy efficiency is positively related to return on equity, return on assets, return on investment, return on invested capital and return on sales but has no significant relationship with Tobin's q. In addition, we examine the interaction effect between energy intensity and firm growth and find that firm growth helps to enhance the positive relationship between energy intensity and financial performance. Our findings provide incentive for firms to be proactive in their efforts towards energy conservation and emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Evaluation of the energy and emissions efficiency of Chinese regions has recently attracted increasing interest. A number of previous studies have contributed to the measurement of energy efficiency using various types of data envelopment analysis (DEA) techniques. However, most of these DEA-based energy efficiency analyses were restricted to the radial expansions of outputs or radial contractions of inputs. In this paper, we utilize the multi-directional efficiency analysis (MEA) approach instead of the traditional radial DEA to investigate Chinese regional energy and emissions efficiency. Since MEA selects benchmarks such that the input contractions or output expansions are proportional to the potential improvement identified by considering the improvement potential in each input or output variable separately, not just the efficiency status but also the efficiency patterns of different Chinese regions and areas can be detected. The empirical study results indicate that, in general, the MEA efficiency of China experienced an increasing process over the study period 1997–2010; the east area overall is more MEA efficient than the central area and the west area of China during the study period; the significant higher MEA efficiency of the east area to the central area and the west area are due to both the higher energy specific efficiency and the higher emissions specific efficiency of the east area compared to the other two areas; the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Henan, and Hubei etc. have both high energy saving potentials and high emissions reduction potentials, thus they will play the most important roles in China’s effort on energy conservation and CO2 emissions mitigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A number of radiant heating/cooling systems have been applied in Mainland China in recent years for its improved thermal comfort and inherent energy saving potential. Because the systems require relatively higher temperatures for cooling and lower temperatures for heating, many natural low-grade energy sources can be directly or indirectly used. However, because of a lack of information about prior practical projects, a number of difficulties in design, construction and management of the systems have been encountered, and energy efficiency is not necessarily achieved in all situations. This paper reviews the practical applications in four major projects involving different building types located in different climatic cities and presents the associated considerations in system design. Other factors affecting the energy efficiency of the systems are identified, such as the spatial convection and radiation heat transfer processes in indoor environments and the envelope thermal properties. Further studies are needed to achieve system optimization and to realize the full energy saving potentials of radiant systems by developing analytical design methods and monitoring the actual energy use of such systems in completed projects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Energy consumption by passenger transport in Hong Kong increased rapidly in the past decades and in 2008 it accounted for 19.7% of total energy use. Improving energy efficiency has been widely regarded as an effective way for reducing energy use in the transport sector. However, the expected energy savings from energy efficiency improvement are likely to be discounted due to the existence of rebound effect. This paper employs econometric models to estimate the direct rebound effect for private passenger transport in Hong Kong. We find that the magnitudes of the direct rebound effect are respectively 45% and 35% for 1993–2009 and 2002–2009, which indicates that there was a declining trend in the direct rebound effect for passenger transport over time. It also indicates that the direct rebound effect needs to be taken into consideration in assessing the impact of energy efficiency measures on reducing energy use in Hong Kong. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article evaluated the energy effeciency in Hebei Province using some indicators such as comprehensive energy consumption, efficiency of energy transformation. Then it makes a comparative analysis about the HeBei Province''s status in the country''s energy conservation. The final part of the paper predicts energy consumption indicators in HeBei province from 2009 to 2013. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We estimate the energy efficiency and direct rebound effect of residential electricity consumption by using the stochastic energy demand frontier model. • The average value of efficiency is 0.491, and the average rebound effect is 48%. • We find that electricity price and household size have a negative impact on the rebound effect, while the impact of income is inverted U-shaped. • The rebound effect varies across before and after the implementation of the increasing block pricing policy, considering rural and urban residents and different regions. The rebound effect is a potential threat to energy efficiency related policies to save energy. Based on data from China family panel studies over the period 2010–2018, this paper measures the energy efficiency and direct rebound effect of residential electricity consumption by using the stochastic energy demand frontier model. The result shows that the average value of efficiency is 0.491, and the average rebound effect is 48%. It means that there is still room for improvement in China's household electricity consumption efficiency. But the expected electricity- saving after improving efficiency can only achieve 52%. Besides, we find that electricity price and household size have a negative impact on the rebound effect, while the impact of income is inverted U-shaped. Finally, the rebound effect varies between before and after the implementation of the increasing block pricing policy, considering rural and urban residents and different regions. These findings provide some policy implications for the residential electricity pricing system under the background of energy conservation and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Trends in China''s energy future will have considerable consequences for both China and the global environment. Though China''s carbon emissions are low on a per capita basis, China is already ranked the world''s second largest producer of carbon, behind only America. China''s buildings sector currently accounts for 23% of China''s total energy use and is projected to increase to one-third by 2010. Energy policy plays an important role in China''s sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to provide a broad overview of energy efficiency issues in the built environment in China. This paper, firstly briefly, reviews the key national policies related to the built environment and demonstrates the government''s environmental concern. Secondly, the authors introduce recent energy policies in the built environment. Energy efficiency and renewable energy in the built environment, which are the key issues of the national energy policy, have been reviewed. Discussion of the implementation of energy policy has been carried out. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A new benchmarking methodology is explored based on the Lorenz curve. • An index of energy consumption levels is determined based on limited information. • Introduces a new method to label buildings based on their energy performance. • Assists to reform energy policies rooted in a novel heating fee allocation method. Increasing emphasis has been made on energy conservation and pollution control with regard to the urbanization and sustainable development in Chinese society. This requires the three parties involved, the government, the heating providers and the building occupants, to focus on energy policies that can encourage behavior towards energy saving. For this, the heating energy performance in the region should be evaluated and the energy benchmarks need to be extracted. This paper adopted a novel approach to derive the benchmarks of the existing building stock in a cold region of China. The benchmarking was done using a special technique based on the Lorenz curve, which was compared with two competing methods. The Lorenz curve method was proved to be the most adequate one among the three. It can extract the energy benchmarks based on the distribution rules of heating energy use intensity in relation to the cumulative building area. Besides, it is an efficient method when only limited building information or data is available. Based on the results, this study also discussed in what way policy incentives can focus on the relationship between heating fees and building energy performance in the severe cold climate zones of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]