Building energy efficiency evaluation labelling scheme

Including necessary facts and data e.g. number of existing buildings, specific energy consumption per unit of technology in stock and in current market reference not BAT
For new buildings, MEPS (Minimum Energy Performance Standards for buildings, c.f. bigEE China file on Regulations for Energy efficiency of building design and operation in new and refurbished buildings) require a maximum allowed energy consumption equivalent to saving 50% and 65% compared to the conventional building practices of the 1980s. Before the enactment of the building energy efficiency labelling, there was little incentive provided for implementing energy efficiency for both energy savings and energy efficiency retrofitting within existing buildings (except for some basic incentives, c.f. bigEE China file on Existing Building Retrofit and Heat Metering Reform in Northern Heating Areas) and for exceeding the MEPS levels in new build.
The building energy efficiency evaluation label system has been implemented in many other countries and gives good feedback in terms of building energy efficiency management. Actually, as a new management mechanism, the building energy efficiency evaluation label is widely adopted overseas. For example: The Energy Star in the USA, Energy Performance Certificates in the EU, energy passport in Russia, etc.
In China, the public is gradually becoming familiar with building energy efficiency. Item No. 21 of “Ordinance on Civil building Energy Conservation” (issued on Oct 1 2008) regulates that: energy efficiency in government office buildings and other large public buildings should be evaluated, labelled, and publicized. This shows that building energy efficiency becomes an issue for legislation in China. On that basis, MOHURD issued a civil building energy efficiency evaluation and labelling system in 2008, and issued policies such as “Interim Administrative Measures of Civil Building Energy-efficiency Evaluation Label” “Interim Administrative Measures of Civil Building Energy-efficiency Evaluation Agency”, and “Technical Guidelines for Civil Building Energy-efficiency Evaluation and Labelling (interim)”.
After the issuing of the aforementioned policies at the national level, some provinces and cities, such as Beijing, Hainan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Guangxi, etc, formulated local policies for civil building energy efficiency evaluation labelling.

1. To implement a building energy-efficiency evaluation label that provides information on energy-efficiency and energy consumption, and by way of this, to enhance the market transparency and thereby to boost building energy efficiency development in China, and to guide and encourage property development companies.
2. Energy-efficiency evaluation labelling in some buildings is compulsory. Those buildings include: 1) government office buildings and large scale public buildings (construction area larger than 20,000 m²) that are newly built, retrofitted, enlarged; 2) government office buildings and large scale public buildings that carry out energy efficiency retrofits and apply for government subsidies for energy efficiency; 3) buildings that apply for national and provincial energy efficiency demo projects; 4) Buildings that apply for green building evaluation labelling.
3. The building energy efficiency evaluation agency should carry out evaluation after the project obtains its certificate from the construction administrative department and should be responsible for the accuracy and factuality of the results. The national/provincial construction administrative department should supervise the building energy efficiency evaluation agency and examine their evaluation work regularly. 
4. The building owners should post the energy efficiency evaluation label in a distinct place in the building. 
5. Policy 1 is a comprehensive document issued by the government, to publicize the building energy efficiency evaluation label and clarify the implementation scope and management agencies. Policy 2 regulates the adoption scale, implementation procedure, results grading, label distribution, supervision agency of the energy efficiency evaluation labelling system. Policy 3 regulates the qualifications, application, responsibilities and supervisions of the building energy efficiency evaluation agency. Policy 4 regulates the concrete evaluation indicators. 

They are all national policies.

Relevant sectors

• Services: Both commercial and public services (especially the national demo projects with renewable energy use, government office buildings, large scale commercial and public buildings, and existing building retrofit projects. They all receive central government subsidies.)
• Residential

Civil building energy efficiency evaluation labelling targets a single building as a whole, including the pipe-work and heating & cooling equipment. The evaluation includes the thermal characteristics of the building envelope, heating & air conditioning system(s), ventilation and the deployment of sustainable energy generation and energy saving technologies. The theoretical value label should be calculated based on the energy consumption by heating & air conditioning equipment per m² with software authorized by department responsible for building energy efficiency labelling.

The target is to encourage overall improvement in civil building energy efficiency, i.e. to achieve higher energy efficiency levels than required by MEPS in new buildings and to promote energy efficiency retrofitting in existing buildings.
In the “Technical Guidelines for Civil Building Energy-efficiency Evaluation and Labelling (interim)”(Policy 4), the target for building energy efficiency labelling is newly built residential buildings, commercial and public buildings as well as existing buildings after energy efficient retrofits. The evaluated objects are single buildings. The building energy efficiency label includes five grades, which are based on the building energy efficiency standard. When evaluating the theoretical values of building energy efficiency: 1-star is certified when 50~65% of energy saving compared to a typical building in the 1980s is achieved in the fundamental index and all items in the required index are fulfilled; 2-stars are certified when 65-75% of energy saving is achieved in the fundamental index and all items in the required index are fulfilled; 3-stars are certified when 75-85% of energy saving is achieved in the fundamental index and all items in the required index are fulfilled; 4-stars are certified when more than 85% of energy saving is achieved in the fundamental index and all items in the required index are fulfilled; 5-stars are certified when the building is able to obtain more than 60 points in the optional index (the total mark is 100). The evaluation procedure is to firstly evaluate the envelope and heating/air conditioning system in accordance with existing national building energy efficiency standards and then give additional points for the new technology application.

Relevant target groups

• Architect
• Property development company
• Real estate agent
• Investor Landlords/landladies, housing companies or leasing companies or other special types of investors for buildings
• User
• Energy consultant
• Engineering consultant

Direct beneficiaries

• Tenant

  They are provided with relevant information on a building’s energy performance

• User

  Buyers of completed/existing buildings and apartments can benefit from the labels, as they are provided with relevant information on a building’s energy performance

Indirect beneficiaries

• Manufacturer

  Both component manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers may benefit from an increasing demand of products for the energy efficient buildings.

• Energy consultant

  Energy consultants may benefit from an increasing interest of investing energy efficient buildings.

Relevant barriers

• Knowledge and information barriers: The policy set informs the government administrative department, building investors and construction units about energy efficiency levels via the label. It offers a clear technological guideline, management measures of evaluation labelling and evaluation agencies, and clarifies the adoption scope and target project. Energy efficiency measures differ dramatically in different climatic zones. The building energy efficiency evaluation technical guidance specifies detailed requirements for different climatic zones and different types of buildings, given the local climate and technology availability
• Lack of interest and motivation in energy efficiency-improvement: The policy set addresses investors ‘ lack of interests in energy-efficiency improvements in certain building types, for example, government office buildings and large scale public buildings (construction area larger than 20,000 m²)

Relevant incentives

• Unique selling proposition for suppliers: Investors may have a unique proposition for selling or renting out their residential buildings

The policy package quotes the standards of different climate zones in Policy set 1, i.e. MEPS for new buildings in four climate zones
The energy efficiency label is compulsory for the green building label (policy set 4) and for the existing buildings that receive financial incentives for energy efficiency retrofit (policy set 5)

The trial implementation of building energy efficiency label began in 2008. It is a milestone in China’s building energy efficiency. For the first time, it evaluates both the theoretical (calculated) value and the actual (measured) value of energy consumption.

Firstly, the building energy efficiency evaluation contains a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria. For residential, commercial and public buildings (excluding large scale commercial and public buildings), the building energy efficiency evaluation agencies conduct qualitative evaluation on the documents of design, construction, and completion & acceptance with the assistance of analysis software. For large scale commercial and public buildings, the agencies will additionally test major factors that influence energy efficiency and then publish results.
Secondly, the scheme includes a combination of compulsory label and voluntary label. Government office buildings and large scale commercial and public buildings, whose energy efficiency measures are supported by central government subsidy, must apply for energy efficiency label evaluation, in order to enhance the public supervision for energy efficient buildings financed by government. For other buildings, the developers voluntarily apply for the label.
Thirdly, the evaluation is based on the principle of the third party. Building energy efficiency label evaluation should be conducted by an authorized expert agency outside government. However, MOHURD and local construction administrations then implement the official act of issuing the label.

At present, China is compiling a technical standard for the energy efficiency evaluation label. The ‘standard’ will be more powerful in its implementation and much easier in operation, compared with the technical ‘guidelines’.

The policy package can also be optimised.
The label implementation can be linked with the compulsory building energy efficiency standards, which will boost the building energy efficiency development.
The label implementation can also be more closely linked with the green building labelling system (cf. the bigEE China file on this system). For example, the certificate for energy saving in green buildings can use the results directly from the building energy efficiency evaluation label. Moreover, only buildings that are approved by an evaluation label can apply for a green building certificate. In addition, when the energy efficiency evaluation label changes, the status of green building should be re-evaluated.
The government can encourage those buildings labelled with a high level of energy efficiency with positive incentives, such as reduction of tax and some other costs.
Public awareness of the building energy efficiency labelling system can be further enhanced. Consumers should be better informed about their economic saving potential from their heating/air conditioning/ventilation system when they live in a building labelled with a high level of energy efficiency.
The label could be made mandatory for more - or eventually all - new and existing buildings.

The following pre-conditions are necessary to implement this type of policy
Agencies or other actors responsible for implementation
Building research institutes should have expertise in evaluating the energy efficiency of the whole building as well as specific analysis equipment .There are already some domestic research institutes, which have the capacity and have become regional agencies that are responsible for energy efficiency evaluation for labelling.

Funding
Costs of preparation and implementation of the policy are covered by normal state and city budgets.
Costs for the project evaluation necessary to obtain a label are mostly covered by the applicants themselves. These can be the developer or the owner, which varies in different provinces or cities.

Policy design and testing phase: pre-investigation of current status, policy formulation, implementation and evaluation of pilot projects in some cities, and improvement in the policy set according to the pilot result.
Policy implementation: there are two phases involved in building energy efficiency labeling:

• theoretical value phase: this label is given after the completion of the building, and is valid for one year. . 
• actual value phase: continuous on-site monitoring of actual energy efficiency should be conducted for no less than 1 year after the theoretical value label is assigned. The theoretical value will be revised according to the monitoring results, based on which actual value of building energy efficiency is labelled. The actual value is valid for 5 years.

Actors responsible for design
Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China, MOHURD

Actors responsible for implementation
The construction departments at different administrative levels and certified evaluation agencies.
Interim Administrative Measures of Civil Building Energy-efficiency Evaluation Label (Policy 2) is to regulate the scope, implementation procedure, grading, labelling application, and supervision agency for the energy efficiency evaluation labelling system.
Interim Administrative Measures of Civil Building Energy efficiency Evaluation Agency (Policy 3) is to regulate 1) the qualification, application procedure, selection of the energy efficiency evaluation agencies, and; 2) defines the responsibilities of these agency as well as the supervision and examination of them. These evaluation agencies are in charge of both national and provincial construction administrative agencies. MOHURD is responsible for nationwide building energy efficiency evaluation activities, such as setting standards for evaluation agencies and authorizing national evaluation agencies. The construction departments at the provincial/ autonomous region and municipal level are in charge of evaluation agencies within their administrative boundaries, such as certifying provincial evaluation agencies. MOHURD will carry out annual examination of the national evaluation agency and re-evaluate them every 3 years. An agency which falls short in its re-evaluation is required to reform within 6 months. Its certificates will become invalid if it is unable to be approved after the reform period. The following is a list of some major national building energy efficiency evaluation agencies:

1. North China：China Academy of Building Research 
2. Northeast China：Liaoning Building Science Research Institute
3. Southwest China ：Sichuan Institute of Building Research 
4. East China：Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences
5. Middle China：Henan Provincial Academy of Building Research 
6. South China：Shenzhen Institute of Building Research
7. Northwest China：Shaanxi Provincial Architectural Institute

Monitoring
There’s no special monitoring system for the energy efficiency evaluation label. However, since all projects covered to date are national demo projects, they are monitored through the annual energy efficiency inspection. This is eased by the fact that the label itself provides an evaluation for the energy efficiency of the projects.

• Avoiding lost opportunities: If new buildings are able to cost effectively reach higher energy efficiency levels than those required by MEPS, but are actually built only in accordance with MEPS, this is a lost opportunity. The energy efficiency label attempts to encourage higher energy efficiency and thus to avoid lost opportunity.
• Dynamic market transformation and/or innovation: It was started from demo projects and projects that were financed by the central government, so as to gradually promote the building energy efficiency evaluation market. It contributes to technical innovation and can help prepare the next step towards stricter MEPS.
• Creating Spill-over effects: By implementing an energy efficiency label system, government office buildings and large-scale public buildings will be supervised by the whole of society. More construction units will receive the necessary information and thus, awareness on building energy efficiency, so as to push more projects into taking part in energy efficiency labelling application.

Co-benefits
Natural ventilation and day lighting design is one of the optional indicators for both residential and public building.

The following barriers have been experienced during the implementation of the policy
Evaluation labels in civil building energy efficiency include a theoretical value label and an actual value label. To date, no actual value label has been certified. The reasons include:
lack of experiences in on-site monitoring of building energy efficiency;
data monitoring is complex; it needs continuous monitoring over one year so the cost is rather high;
How to show the theoretical value and actual value in the final label would also be a problem if there is a big difference between the two values.

The following measures have been undertaken to overcome the barriers
A technical standard for energy efficiency evaluation labelling is under development. It will address the current implementation difficulties, standardize evaluation of actual values, and develop an approach to link the labelling with the existing building energy efficiency standards more smoothly.

From 2009 to 2011, MOHURD organized four evaluations for civil building energy efficiency label. There were 125 projects certified in total, 19 buildings with 3-stars, 53 buildings with 2-stars and 53 buildings with 1-star. For example, Zhongguancun International Mall in Changping district of Beijing, Fujian Plaza in Tianjin, Vanke headquarters in Shenzhen, Gaoloujincun reform in Tongzhou district of Beijing, Main building of Guangzhou Science Center, etc. The number of civil building energy efficiency labels is expected to grow, since the technical standard of the building energy efficiency label has come into force since 1st March 2013. Meanwhile, a new administrative measure targeting wider application is being prepared and will be published soon.
However, the energy saving figure doesn’t show on the label certificate (figure in the summary) for each project. The IBR Building was in the first batch of approved 3-star projects. The following figure shows the contents of the certificate (including basic information and energy efficiency information for a building).

The completed and ongoing projects are mainly demo projects, which obtained incentive funds from the government. As the labelling system develops further, the evaluation agencies will gradually charge certain fees (not determined yet).

The combination of energy efficiency evaluation label and demo projects, such as sustainable energy application, large-scale public building and existing building retrofits, provides a good policy & technical platform for China’s building energy efficiency. The benefit will surely surpass the cost of policy making and implementation.