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Energy waste in buildings 'to stop'

(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-01-19 08:49

China will spend hundreds of millions of yuan to make its buildings more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, Vice-Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing said yesterday.

China's fast urban growth has accelerated the pace and expanded the scale of constructions and in the process a "huge amount of energy is being wasted".

Qiu conceded that last year's energy efficiency improvement target was not met because the project to renovate existing buildings so that they could save more energy was limited to only a few regions.

A ministry inspection in 30 regions last year showed the four municipalities ofBeijing,Shanghai,TianjinandChongqingwere doing relatively well in implementing energy saving codes. But other regions were way behind in technological standards and government supervision.

Qiu said it would take 1.5 trillion yuan ($193 billion) to make the buildings more energy efficient by 2020. The money will be raised through national subsidies. "This will be a tremendous market."

China has about 60 percent of the world's scaffoldings, and the number of its buildings will almost double by 2020. And the area they occupy will increase from 43 billion to 73 billion square meters, Qiu said.

Though Qiu didn't quantify the energy wasted, he gave an example to illustrate the voracious energy consumption of buildings in China.

"In Beijing, 22.4 kilograms of standard coal is needed to heat 1 square meter of a house in winter, whereas Germany does that with just 9 kilograms," he said.