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The increasing building energy consumption in China has been acknowledged as a key concern in future climate mitigation and sustainable development. Though reliable accounting of energy consumption is the prerequisite, estimates of China's building energy consumption remain subject to large discrepancies. One of the primary causes of these disparities is an inaccurate estimation of building energy intensities due to flaws in estimation methods and data. Here, we present a bottom-up approach and use large-scale nationwide building energy survey data (covering 30 provinces, four different types of buildings, and district heating from 2009 to 2016) to correct the existing, widely used assumption of normal distribution for building energy intensity and provide a more accurate estimate of building energy consumption in China. Our improved estimate of China's building energy consumption differs by −10% to 36% from existing mainstream estimates, indicating a significant bias in existing research and applications. • The non-normal probability distribution of building energy intensity is identified. • A bottom-up approach for the accurate estimate of building energy use is developed. • The re-quantified building energy use differs by −10% ~ 36% from the main estimates. • The features of building energy consumption in China were explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building energy use is becoming increasingly important in China. Despite a rapid growth in recent years, energy use intensity in China is still relatively low compared to other advanced economies; thus, there is still substantial room for it to increase as living standards and industrial services are improved. It is therefore important to focus on the future development of building energy use by considering new trends in the building and energy sectors, as well as the role of occupant behavior. This study uses the China Building Energy Model (CBEM) to model China's building energy consumption and carbon emissions up to 2050 for different scenarios based on these considerations. The results indicate that building energy use will be 80% higher than the current situation if the strategies of the 13th Five-Year Plan are maintained and approximately 10% higher if stronger strategies toward energy efficiency are employed. Carbon emissions are predicted to peak around 2020 to 2035. The contributions of key strategies in different subsectors are also discussed. This research suggests that, through the use of suitable strategies and policies, energy use and carbon emissions in China's building sector can achieve the combined goals of energy revolution and climate change mitigation. • China's building energy consumption and carbon emissions up to 2050 were modeled. • China's building energy use will be 10%–80% higher under different scenarios. • The contributions of key strategies in different subsectors were discussed. • China's building sector is able to develop sustainably with suitable strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing concern about global climate change extends to different professional sectors. In the building industry, the energy consumption of buildings becomes a factor susceptible to change due to the direct relationship between the outside temperature and the energy needed to cool and heat the internal space. This document aims to estimate the energy consumption of a Minimum Energy Building (MEB) in different scenarios—past, present, and future—in the subtropical climate typical of seaside cities in Southern Spain. The building energy consumption has been predicted using dynamic building energy simulation software tools. Projected climate data were obtained in four time periods (Historical, the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s), based on four emission scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): B1, B2, A2, A1F1. This methodology has been mathematically complemented to obtain data in closer time frames (2025 and 2030). In addition, different mitigation strategies have been proposed to counteract the impact of climate change in the distant future. The different energy simulations carried on show clearly future trends of growth in total building energy consumption and how current building designers could be underestimating the problem of air conditioning needs in the subtropical zone. Electricity demand for heating is expected to decrease almost completely, while electricity demand for cooling increases considerably. The changes predicted are significant in all scenarios and periods, concluding an increase of between 28–51% in total primary energy consumption during the building life cycle. The proposed mitigation strategies show improvements in energy demands in a range of 11–14% and they could be considered in the initial stages of project design or incorporated in the future as the impact of climate change becomes more pronounced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]