(July 6, 2002) Constructing energy-efficient buildings could, by 2020, reduce China’s energy consumption for air-conditioning by the equivalent of 4.5 times the output of the Three Gorges dam, economists forecast.

Building construction and heating have been listed as China’s top energy user, which consumed approximately one-quarter of the total energy consumed by the whole country, said Vice Minister of Construction Huang Wei. Huang said at a recent national design conference here that it constitutes an urgent task for China to develop energy-efficient buildings despite the fact that noticeable progress has been made in this regard. Statistics from the recent conference show that there are 58.53 percent of the buildings have been designed with an energy-saving concept, but only 23.25 percent were built into the energy-efficient type. China has completed a total space of about 320 million square meters of energy efficient buildings in the past decade and saved some 10.94 million tons of standard coal. Nevertheless, buildings will still possibly consume more energy in the years ahead, acknowledged Huang. Xu Jianzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said currently electric power, diesel oil or coal are used most to heat buildings in China, whereas all these energy resources can be replaced by solar energy or terrestrial heat. Economists forecast that by 2020, there will be about 30 billion square meters of new building constructions in China. If all these buildings are energy-efficient, it will help save some 335 million tons of standard coal, and reduce 80 million kilowatts of electricity from air conditioning, which is equal to 4.5 times the total hydro-electric output generated by the gigantic Three Gorges Power Station on the mid reaches of the Yangtze River.

Xinhua, July 6, 2002