Double Hundred (Demonstration) Projects

Location:
China
Type of policy:
Provision of information
Implementation period:
2007 to 2010
Title in original language:
Notice on organizing application for ‘Green Building Demonstration Projects’ and ‘Low Energy Building Demonstration Projects’ (Double Hundred Project)

The ‘Double-hundred Projects’ aimed at implementing 200 demonstration projects of low energy buildings and green buildings during the 11th Five Year period. It thus contributed to building energy efficiency improvement (departing from mandatory code) and green building development before the implementation of the green building and energy efficiency star labels

Summary

The ‘Double-hundred Project’ is included in the “Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction” action plan issued by the State Council in 2007, which aims to provide technical guidance and demonstration of green buildings and low energy buildings for the different climate zones in China. It indicates the government’s ambition to promote green buildings and energy efficient buildings.
Green building demonstration application range: commercial and public buildings with a floor area of more than 20,000m²; residential community buildings with a floor area of more than 50,000m²; single residential buildings with floor area more than 20,000m² and buildings with high-end, innovative technologies.
Low energy building demonstration application range: new residential buildings with at least 65% energy saving compared to new buildings of the 1980’s (a relative saving of 30% vs. the legal requirement of 50 % energy saving compared to new buildings of the 1980’s valid in 2007) or advanced energy efficient technology; new buildings with renewable energy use; new commercial and public buildings with more than the legal requirement of 50% energy saving design; large public buildings (floor area more than 20,000m²) and university campus (floor area more than 100,000m²) with energy saving operation and management system; residential building retrofit project; and so on.
For the ‘Double-hundred Project’, the targeted approaches include excellent plan and design before the construction, application of advanced technologies to achieve energy, land, water, material saving, indoor environment controlling and operation management; remarkable social, economical and environmental benefits.
During the development of the “Double-hundred Project”, several national and local workshops and training programmes were held for information exchange and technology dissemination concerning energy efficiency and green building approaches. The technical specifications for green and energy-efficient demonstration buildings were linked to the standards for the green building labelling and building energy efficiency labelling schemes.
The target of this policy has been to select 200 demonstration projects of green buildings and low energy buildings during the 11th Five Year period. There were 217 applied projects until the end of 2010, and 116 projects were finally approved (demonstration floor area almost 20 million m²). The demonstration projects have covered almost all the climate zones and regions with different economic development levels in China.

Success factors

Good practice examples: ‘Double-hundred Projects’ build up the good practices of green buildings and low energy buildings, which improves the experience exchanges in the building sector.
Wide scope of demonstration: The range of ‘Double-hundred Projects’ covers not only residential and office building, but also special building types like hospital and industrial buildings, etc. The wide demonstration scope contributes to knowledge dissemination of developing green buildings and low energy buildings in China.
The dissemination was further enhanced through the workshops and training programmes mentioned above.

Factors to avoid

The biggest barriers of the ‘Double-hundred Project’ are, however, 1) a lack of market-inherent incentives and of financial incentives from government to attract more projects to join in; 2) low impacts: the impacts of the demonstration has decreased as the green building and energy efficiency labelling has been implemented

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Situation at outset

During the time when the ‘Double-hundred Project’ was initiated, mandatory energy codes already came into force in whole China, but the green building evaluation standard was not yet officially implemented.

Aim of policy

The ‘Double-hundred Project’ aims to widely promote the low energy buildings and green buildings concept through the demonstration projects.
‘Double-hundred projects’ were regarded as very successful programmes in the 11th Five-Year period (2006-2010), which also received much support from local construction departments, design institutions, and research institutes, etc.
The projects that passed the evaluation gained the title of ‘national green building demonstration project’ or ‘national low energy demonstration project’. However, there were no monetary rewards.

Governance level

It is a national policy.

Sectoral focus

Relevant sectors

Residential
Services

Actions targeted

It targets various technical actions.

Target groups

Relevant target groups

Architect The architects needed to design the buildings in accordance with the criteria and requirements for either green or energy-efficient demonstration buildings.
Property development company These companies needed to decide about participation and then to meet the criteria and requirements for either green or energy-efficient demonstration buildings.
Investor The investors needed to take the decision of whether to purchase buildings or parts thereof that met the criteria and requirements for either green or energy-efficient demonstration buildings.
Investor-occupier Same as for the investor-landlords.

Beneficiaries

Direct beneficiaries

Architect
Possibly improved reputation for being able to design green and/or energy-efficient buildings.
Property development company
Improved reputation and possibly higher prices for the demonstration buildings
Investor
Reputation of being ‘green’ and possibly higher rents from tenants.
Investor-occupier
Reputation of being ‘green’ and savings in energy costs.
Tenant
Savings in energy costs

Barriers addressed

Relevant barriers

Knowledge and information barriers: Both investors and project developers, but also architects and others involved in building design benefitted from the information about the benefits of energy efficiency and green building as well as the national and local workshops and trainings that were held for information exchange and technology dissemination concerning energy efficiency and green building approaches.
Lack of interest and motivation in energy efficiency-improvement: By showing what is feasible and what can be saved, the programme intended to motivate others to follow.

Incentives addressed

Relevant incentives

Saved energy costs: For investor- occupiers, this was probably an important incentive.

Policy package

The technical specifications for green and energy-efficient demonstration buildings were linked to the standards for the green building labelling and building energy efficiency labelling schemes

Possible further improvements

Financial incentives might have been provided to investors in the demonstration buildings.

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Preconditions for implementation

The following pre-conditions are necessary to implement this type of policy:
Agencies or other actors responsible for implementation
The responsible organisations for implementing the ‘Double-hundred Projects’ are local construction bureaus and related departments. The Building Energy Efficiency Expert Committee of MOHURD is responsible for the evaluation and supervising of demonstration projects.

Funding
No financial incentives are provided

Test procedures
The technical specifications for green and energy-efficient demonstration buildings were linked to the standards for the green building labelling and building energy efficiency labelling schemes.

Steps of design and implementation

The application involves the following steps:

The applicants (developer, owner, etc.) submit the application with the technical documents for the projects to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in MOHURD;
The project will be evaluated and approved by the building energy efficiency committee organized by DOST;
The project construction should be based on the requirements specified by the evaluation advices, and the project applicants should report the construction progress to DOST.

The application condition for ‘Double-hundred Projects’ is stringent. MOHURD developed key evaluation points for both green buildings and low energy buildings based on the building energy efficiency standards (specifying the U-values for the insulation and envelope, building orientation, shape co-efficient, ratio of area of window and wall, etc.) and ‘National Green Building Evaluation Standard’ (covering following indicator categories: land saving and outdoor environment; energy saving and use; water saving and use; material saving and use; indoor environment; operation and management) in order to select the demonstration projects from the applied projects.Until the end of 2010, 217 projects in total applied. Only 116 projects were finally approved.

Quantified target
The target of this policy was to select 200 demonstration projects of green buildings and low energy buildings during 11th Five-Year period (2006-2010).

Actors responsible for design and implementation

Actors responsible for design
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of MOHURD

Actors responsible for implementation
The responsible organisations for implementing the ‘Double-hundred Projects’ are local construction bureaus and related departments. The Building Energy Efficiency Expert Committee of MOHURD is responsible for the evaluation and supervising of demonstration projects.

Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring
No specific monitoring mechanism was included in this policy. However, these demonstration projects are possibly at the top of the annual inspection list by MOHURD.

Policy dynamics and handling side-effects

Dynamic market transformation and/or innovation: At the time when the programme started, since green buildings and low energy building were still at market introduction stage, demonstration projects were very important for market transformation. They show energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness are possible without compromising the quality of services and at a reasonable cost.
Avoiding lost opportunities: Demonstration projects can avoid lost opportunities, because they are able to increase stakeholders’ awareness, knowledge, and trust in low energy buildings and thus may avoid high energy buildings to be invested in, built and bought.
Minimising rebound effects: Providing information on energy saving during the use phase was not part of the demonstration, thus, the policy did not aim at minimising the rebound effect.
Minimising snap-back effects: The demonstration programme consisted of 200 projects in a certain period and thus might have seen a snap-back effect. However, the green building and energy efficiency evaluation labelling schemes followed on during and after the ‘Double-hundred Projects’ and thus should minimise such effects.
Minimising free-rider effects: Free-rider effects can occur, given that there are other policies supporting low energy buildings and green buildings (e.g. national green building innovation award and reward for demonstration programmes of building energy efficiency and renewable technologies). Thus, the investors may have decided to construct those buildings without the demonstration programme.
Creating Spill-over effects: Positive spill-over effects can be realised with this policy, given the enhanced awareness and knowledge of investors about low energy buildings and green buildings. In addition, the spill-over effects are also enhanced by national and local workshops and training programmes organised for information exchange and technology dissemination.

Sustainability aspects and co-benefits

Design for sustainability aspects
The green buildings part of the demonstration programme encouraged land, water, material savings, indoor environment controlling and operation management in addition to energy efficiency.

Implementation barriers

The following barriers have been experienced during the implementation of the policy
The biggest barriers for the ‘Double-hundred Project’ are 1) a lack of market-inherent incentives and of financial incentives from government to attract more projects to participate; 2) low impacts: the impacts of the demonstration have decreased as the green building and energy efficiency labelling has been implemented.

Find out the potential impacts of this good practice policy example alongside energy savings and cost effectiveness.

Achieved energy savings

Concrete figures in energy savings/year
The “Double-hundred Project” has covered almost all the climate zones and regions with different economic development levels. There were 217 applied projects until the end of 2010, and 116 projects were finally approved, with demonstration floor area of almost 20 million m². However, no exact energy saving data for these projects was available.

Actual costs

There was only an administrative cost associated with implementing the policy.

Authors

Shen, Mi (Lead author)
Tan, Zichao (Lead author)
Thomas, Stefan (Reviewer)
Xia, Chun (Reviewer)

References and further reading

Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People’s Republic of China (MOHURD) (2007): Notice on organizing application for ‘Green Building Demonstration Projects’ and ‘Low Energy Building Demonstration Projects’ (Double Hundred Project). www.bigee.net/s/bdhx9c

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