Beijing, 5 January: A one-day workshop in Beijing, organized as part of a research project funded by the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency, brought together leading experts and officials from key Chinese ministries to identify high impact opportunities for energy efficiency in the country and policies and measures to realise these opportunities.
At the workshop, the C2E2 representative explained the organization’s role as the energy efficiency hub for the UN Sustainable Energy for ALL (SE4ALL) initiative and its commitment to support the realisation of the SE4ALL energy efficiency target, as well as the background and objective of the research project on energy efficiency opportunities and solutions in China. The research team members presented their work plans and the energy efficiency status and various opportunities in China. The officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development explained the key energy efficiency issues in their current working agenda. According to the officials, the ministries are assessing the effects of existing energy progress and planning new policies and measures to fulfill the national contributions China promised under the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015, and setting energy efficiency targets and plans for the new five-year period of 2016-2020.
In addition, the project emphasizes the important role of the private sector in energy efficiency improvement. At the meeting, the research team received feedback from industrial associations and non-government organisations, such as China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, China Academy of Transportation Sciences, and China Energy Research Society.
As China’s energy consumption is big and still growing faster than many other regions and countries, accelerating energy efficiency improvement speed is significant to achieving the SE4ALL target of doubling global energy efficiency improvement rate by 2030. The project will take stock of existing energy efficiency policies and measures in China, identify good practices and success stories, assess the energy efficiency improvement potential in selected sub-sectors, identify high impact opportunities in China, and prepare two project ideas on concrete actions to realise the high impact opportunities for funding by various donors and international financial institutions.
The project is implemented by the Energy Research Institute under the NDRC and the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy of Tsinghua University. The Centre of Science and Technology for Construction under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-rural Development, which is in charge of housing energy efficiency standards and guidelines, is subcontracted to contribute to the research on energy efficiency in the building sector.