Energy and Power E ngineering, 2013, 5, 291-293
doi:10.4236 /epe.2013.54B057 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/epe)
Analysis of Renewable Energy Utilization Potential in
Buildings of China
Min-hua Cai, Lan Tang*
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Building Energy Efficiency and Application Technologies,
Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China
Received February, 2013
ABSTRACT
As a co untry of gr eat p opulat ion, Chi na has increasing buil ding e nerg y consu mptio n continuo usl y. It not only thre atens
the lack of total energy but also hardens the progress of protecting environment. Therefore, it forces the country to ac-
celerate finding substitution application of conventional energy in building, renewable energy building utilization. In
base of 2010, this study explores the potential of the renewable energy building utilization by using energy consumption
analysis until 2030 and predicts annual alternative quantity of renewable energy in different situations.
Keywords: Renewa ble E nergy; Buildi ng Energy Consumption; Potentia l Analysis; Scenari o Analysis Me thod
1. Introduction
Balancing every influence factors plays an important role
in national prosperity and sustainable development, so
energy balance has been a long-term and urgent task. The
three global traditional energy, oil, coal and natural gas,
accounted for more than 90% of the energy consumption.
Implementing the scheme of traditional energy reduction
is so necessary. Although our country is a rich coal
country, because of the large population and causes per-
sonal average energy quantity is lower than the world
average energy quantity. According to the analysis of
journal academic paper “Thinking about the Problems of
Chinese Energy”, published in “Journal of Shanghai
Jiaotong University” .China’s average coal quantity is only
32.8% of the world's average coal quantity, demonstrat-
ing cle arl y our national energy tension.
Moreo ver, with the improvement of social life quality,
China’s building terminal energy consumption has ac-
counted for nearly 27.6% of the total primary energy
consumption. “2012 Annual Report on China Building
Energy Ef ficie ncy” [1] issued that personal building
energy consumption of China 's urba n people is o nly o ne -
fifth of the total building energy consumption, However,
due to the large population base, the total building energy
consumption q uantity is very large.
In the face of such serious situation, the state has
adopted a series of measures:
On the one hand, main mandatory measures adopted
by the national building field are as follow:
1) Strictly controlling the size of the general public
buildings and the growth of building energy consump-
tion;
2) Advocating saving the energy consumption model
and way o f life ;
3) Establishing the supervision system of building
energ y efficiency;
4). Ensuring the smooth implementation of building
ener gy efficiency;
5) Strengthe ning the ince ntive polic y and givi ng pr ior-
ity to financial s ub sidies.
On the other ha nd, ther e is a la rge-scale application of
renewable energy replacing conventional fossil energy.
At the same time, people’s consciousness of energy con-
servation and emission reduction has been improved.
With the global appeal of “low-carbon development”, so
it’s the tendency to limit fossil energy consumption and
implement clean or renewable energy consumption no-
wadays. Utiliza tion of r enewab le ener gy in build ing fie ld
has a great large of potential.
2. Forecast Analysis of Energy Saving
Potential of the Renewable Energy
Utilization in Building
2.1. Situat ion Forecast of Building Energy
Consumption (2010-2030)
According to “2008 Annual Report on China Building
Energy Effic iency” [2], we can organize the specific data
of building energy consumption from 2002 to 2010 as
following Table 1 [3]. Taking the statistics data into ac-
count, the average annual growth rate from 2002 to 2010

M.-H. CAI, L. TAN G
292
comes out to be 12.64% .This is the reality state of
building e nergy consumption gro wth recentl y.
According to Chinese long-term planning of energy
[4], the total energy consumption should be controlled
bellow 4.2 billion tce until 2020, wit h 20% ~ 25% occu-
pied by building energy consumption. So the average
annua l gro wth rat e of buil ding energ y co nsumpti on from
2010 to 2030 can come out to be 0.9%, while assuming 1
billion tce in 2020. This is the ideal state of building
energy consumption growth.
During 2010 to 2030, with the development of the so-
cial mechanism and social progress, the state begins to
pay more and more attention to building energy saving
and introduces some corresponding laws or regulations.
It improves the construction equipment efficiency by
means of the improved science and technology. The so-
ciety has formed a mature saving energy consumption
lifestyle and so on .These lowers average annual growth
rate. Taking a comprehensive consideration of the influ-
ence, we can set a n avera ge a nnual growth r ate o f 4.0 0%
and forecast the development of building energy con-
sumption from 2010 to 2030 (as Table 2)
2.2. The Alterna tive Quan tit y of Renewable
Energy in Building Energy Consumption
(2010-2030) (Baseline Scenario)
According to the published alternative quantity of re-
newable energy in 2010 and the index achieved by “the
Medium and Long-term Development Plan of Renewable
Energ y” [4] until 2020, we can calculate the alternative
quantity growth trend of renewable energy in building
energy consumption and predict alternative data of 2010
to 2030.
By the end of 2010 [5] ，the installation of solar
energy water heater amounts to 168 million square me-
ters and its alternative fossil energy is about 20 million
tons of standard coal; Roof photovoltaic power genera-
tion project is up to 4.4 billion kilowatt hour, which re-
duces 1.42 million tons of standard coal; Ground source
heat
Table 1. The development of building energy consumption
from 2002 to 2010 (unit: ten thousand tce).
Year 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
North town heating 8584 12925 1 6205 17985 16330
Residential (except
the no r t he rn he at i ng ) 11228 12787 14623 16290 47910
Public bu ildings
(except the northern
heating) 12229 26018 18716 30595 17370
total 32041 51730 49544 64870 83620
annua l rate of
growth (%) 6.29 35.32 8.77 16.90 14.23
pump can save 4.6 million tons of standard coal; Me-
thane is about 14 billion cubic meters and its alternative
energy is 11.14 million tons of standard coal. The total
alternative quantity is about 37.16 million tons of stan-
dard coal (shown as Table 3), accounting for 4.44% of
building e nergy consumption.
In 2010, the solar energy water heater area is 168 mil-
lion square meters and planning area of 2020 [5] is 800
million square meters. Refer to the growth speed of re-
newable energy production from 2010 to 2020, the aver-
age annual growth rate comes out to be 16.89%. There-
fore we can predict the alternative quantity of solar
energy
Table 2. The prediction of building energy consumption
from 2010 to 2030.
Year
Population
(hundred
million)
Building area
(hundred
Million m2)
Building energy
consumption
(hundred
million tce)
Personal building
energy consumption
(kgce/per)
2010 13.40 453 8.36 623.88
2015 13.70 513.17 10.17 742.57
2020 14.00 569.36 18.32 1308.28
2030 14.50 632.05 27.11 1870.08
Table 3. the alternative quantity prediction of renewable
energy in building energy consumption from 2010 to 2030
(conve r ted into ten thousand tce/year).
year 2010 2015 2020 2030
Solar water
heater
ten thousand m2 16800 34661 80000 230000
ten thousand
tc e/year 2000 3943 9100 26163
Roof photovolta ic
power
generation
hundred million
kW
⋅
h 44 62 188 804
ten thousand
tc e/year 142 201 6 08 2605
Shallow
Geothermal
energy
ten thousand
tc e/year 460 1000 2200 10522
Methane
hundred million
m3 140 200 440 1383
ten t housand
tc e/year 1114 1591 3500 11000
Total ten thousand
tc e/year 3716 6735 15408 50289
Proportion in
building energy
consumption % 4.44 6.62 10.06 22.18

M.-H. CAI, L. TAN G
293
Table 4. Prediction of renewable energy in building energy
consumption under different situations from 2010 to 2030
(conve r ted into ten thousand tce/year).
N year 2010 2015 2020 2030
1 ba seline scenario 3716 6735 15408 5 0289
Proportion（%） 4.44 6.62 10.06 22.18
2 People know deeply 3901 7071 16179 52804
Proportion（%） 4.67 6.95 10.56 23.29
3 Well-establ is he d p o licy 4087 7408 16949 55318
Proportion（%） 4.89 7.28 11.06 24.40
4 Mat ure technol o gy 4087 7408 16949 55318
Proportion（%） 4.89 7.28 11.06 24.40
5
People know deeply +
Well-establ is he d p o licy 4273 7745 17719 57832
Proportion（%） 5.11 7.61 11.57 25.51
6
People know deeply+Mature
techn ology 4273 7745 17719 57832
Proportion（%） 5.11 7.61 11.57 25.51
N year 2010 2015 2020 2030
7
Well-establish-ed policy +
Mat ure technol o gy 4459 8081 18490 60347
Proportion（%） 5.33 7.95 12.07 26.61
8 Best scene 4645 8418 19260 62861
Proportion（%） 5.56 8.28 12.57 27.72
Proportion: the prop ortion of renewable energy consumption in total build-
ing energy consumption.
water heater in 2015 and 2030. According to the same
calculation methods, the alternative quantity of roof
photovoltaic power generation, shallow geothermal
energy and methane can be respectively predicted from
2010 to 2030 and the related data converted into unity
unit: te n t ho usand t ce/year, shown in Table 3. Until 2030,
renewable energy in building applications can save
502.89 million tce and is 13.5 times that of 2010, ac-
counting for 22.18% of the total energy consumption. It
can ease the shortage of conventional energy sources
which can be used in any other field.
2.3. The Alterna tive Quan tit y of Renewable
Energy in Building Energy Consumption
under Different Situations (2010-2030)
In the situa tional a nal ysis, b ecause of the popular ut iliza-
tion technology of the renewable energy in building, we
can assume 5% of increase rate. Moreover, due to the
standard system and incentive policy improvement, it
makes the alternative quantity increased by 10%. Besides,
it will be increased b y 10% due to the mature utilization
technology of renewable energy. In these ways, this re-
search explores the alternative quantity of renewable
energy in building under various situations (shown as
Table 4).
When it comes to be the best scene, which means
people know deeply, standard system and incentive pol-
icy of renewable energy construction become more per-
fect and utilization technology of renewable energy is
mature, the alternative quantity is up to 628.61 million
tce, accounting for 27.72% of building energy consump-
tion. It’s 125.72 million tce more than baseline scenario.
3. Conclusions
Based on 2010, this study explores the potential of re-
newable energy development in building energy con-
sumption in 2030 and uses scenario analysis method to
predict the alternative quantity of renewable energy in
different situations. So the relevant departments led to
realizing energy saving direction and key areas of re-
newab le e nerg y in the f utur e. It will be bo und to improve
the building integration technology and perfect building
design specif ic a tions.
4. Acknowled ge ments
We thank the support from the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (51078092), “Yangcheng scholar”
project of Education Bureau of Guangzhou (10A039G)
and G uangz hou cit y-be longe d uni versi ty research project
of E ducation Burea u of Guangzhou (10A020).
REFERENCES
[1] Qinghua University Building Energy Research Center,
2012 Annual Report on China Building Energy Efficien-
cy, 2012.
[2] Qinghua University Building Energy Research Center,
2008 Annual Report on China Building Energy E fficien-
cy, 2008
[3] National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of
China, 2001-2011China Statistical Yearbook, 2001-2011.
[4] National Development and Reform Commission of the
People's Republic of China, Medium and Long-term De-
velopment Plan of Renewable Energy of the People's
Republi c of China, 2007.
[5] National Energy Bureau of the People's Republic of Chi-
na, Renewable Energy Development 1025 planning,
2012.