Estimating Total Energy Consumption and Emissions of China’s Commercial and Office Buildings

Buildings represent an increasingly important component of China's total energy consumption mix. However, accurately assessing the total volume of energy consumed in buildings is difficult owing to deficiencies in China's statistical collection system and alack of national surveys. Official statistics suggest that buildings account for about 19%of China's total energy consumption, while others estimate the proportion at 23%, rising to 30% over the next few years. In addition to operational energy, buildings embody the energy used in the in the mining, extraction, harvesting, processing, manufacturing and transport of building materials as well as the energy used in the construction and decommissioning of buildings. This embodied energy, along with a building's operational energy, constitutes the building's life-cycle energy and emissions footprint.This report first provides a review of international studies on commercial building life-cycle energy use from which data are derived to develop an assessment of Chinese commercial building life-cycle energy use, then examines in detail two cases for the development of office building operational energy consumption to 2020. Finally, the energy and emissions implications of the two cases are presented.