Buildings - Key Information on China

China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With this growing economy comes the world´s biggest construction market, ranked number 1 in terms of annual building volume. The sector is so large that by 2015 nearly half of the new buildings annually constructed worldwide will be located in China by 2015.

The rapid urban growth, which is increasing at a tremendous rate, with the urban population rising fivefold in the last 50 years from 107 million in 1960 to 586 million in 2009 (Yifel 2012) is partially responsible for this construction boom. Existing building area in 2010 being at  48,6 billion m² and the rate of new construction at ca. 2 million m²/a

The residential sector is the largest of the building sector, with 60 % of all new buildings; this is followed by the public and commercial sector with 30% and the industrial sector with 10%. As growth in household wealth has increased there has been a significant market growth for new residential buildings as well as the appliances market including the energy consumption increase that goes with it. The rapid transformation and post industrialization that China is currently undergoing has also led to the demand for office buildings in the service sector rising dramatically. With these offices buildings also comes an increased demand for energy for thermal building conditioning. Between 1996 and 2008 total floor space (in urban areas) in northern China has tripled from three billion to nine billon square meters.

This rise in demand for energy makes the building sector the most significant driver in overall energy consumption. The construction market will by 2020 account for 40% of the country’s total energy consumption. It was estimated that the Chinese building sector consumed 373 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2005 or about 14% of total global building energy use. Of this It was estimated that the residential sector was responsible for 90% of building energy consumption. (IEA 2007). This is approximately 28 per cent of the country’s total energy consumption (UNDP 2010). Energy demand in China will maintain high growth in the future as more buildings are built.

At present although the focus in the building sector is more on that of green buildings, energy efficient buildings play an important yet slightly lesser role. However energy efficient building in China cannot be seen as being separate from green buildings in China but rather as complimentary.

Despite this China has achieved significant progress in improving building energy efficiency over the last two decades, much of which can be attributed to carefully planned development strategies, and strong and consistent support from the central government.