The impact of energy prices on energy consumption and energy efficiency: evidence from Taiwan

This study aims to explore the impact of energy prices on energy consumption and energy efficiency using industry data for Taiwan over the period of 1982–2011. A frontier-based framework is proposed with a microeconomic foundation to measure energy efficiency and decompose energy consumption into energy utilization and energy wastage in the short and the long run. We learn that the traditional energy efficiency indicators are essentially ambiguous measures. In contrast, the frontier-based framework can focus the measure on energy relatively specifically and capture the essence of a proper efficiency measure more precisely. The empirical analyses reveal that the values of short- and long-run energy efficiency in the Taiwan manufacturing sector are on average 0.6016 and 0.8040, respectively. Moreover, energy utilization is price inelastic in the short run, but in the long run, it is elastic at ?0.79. The energy price elasticity of energy wastage in the short run is ?0.61, which is somewhat higher than the ?0.52 in the long run. The energy price elasticity of energy efficiency in the short run is 0.077 and that in the long run is 0.144. All the energy price elasticities obtained using the frontier-based framework are lower than those obtained using the common framework of the past without distinguishing the heteroscedasticity between the energy utilization and energy wastage.     

Overview of rural building energy efficiency in China

Over the past three decades, people׳s living standard in China has been greatly improved, accompanied by the rapid increasing building energy consumption. Rural building energy consumption has become one of the most important parts of the total energy consumption in China, which deserves to be paid much attention. It is of vital importance to promote building energy efficiency for the New Socialist Countryside and energy conservation and emission reduction. This paper provides an overview of building energy consumption in the countryside, which figures out the situation and challenges in energy-saving work. The government has worked for years on rural building code system aimed at narrowing the energy gap between urban areas, but it is in the beginning phase. This paper has analyzed the only special issues about rural building energy efficiency and the mandatory standards for urban buildings, which can facilitate the development of rural building energy efficiency. Based on the above analysis, some recommendations regarding the improvement of rural building energy efficiency are given.     

Simple tool to evaluate the impact of daylight on building energy consumption

This paper presents a simple building simulation tool for integrated daylight and thermal analysis. The tool is capable of importing the thermal and visual properties for different glazings and shading positions from the Window Information System (WIS) program. A coupled ray-tracing and radiosity methodology is used to derive the daylight levels for different sky conditions. Both detailed daylight distribution for a particular day and time and hourly discrete values on a yearly basis may be obtained. For an integrated simulation the hourly daylight levels are fed into an existing simple thermal simulation program capable of calculating energy demand and the indoor environment. Straightforward control systems for general and task lighting systems have been implemented together with a shading control strategy that adjusts the shading according to the indoor operative temperature, the risk of glare and the profile angle of the sun. The implemented daylight calculation method allows for shades from the window recess and overhang, and for distant shades blocking the sky vault. Comparisons with the ray-tracing program Radiance show that the accuracy of this approach is adequate for predicting the energy implications of photoresponsive lighting control. The amount of input is small, which makes the tool useful for integrated daylight optimisation in the early design process.     

Evaluation of the impact of the surrounding urban morphology on building energy consumption

Empirical models of minimum (T_min), average (T_avg) and maximum (T_max) air temperature for Singapore estate have been developed and validated based on a long-tem field measurement. There are three major urban elements, which influence the urban temperature at the local scale. Essentially, they are buildings, greenery and pavement. Other related parameters identified for the study, such as green plot ratio (GnPR), sky view factor (SVF), surrounding building density, the wall surface area, pavement area, albedo are also evaluated to give a better understanding on the likely impact of the modified urban morphology on energy consumption.The objective of this research is to assess and to compare how the air temperature variation of urban condition can affect the building energy consumption in tropical climate of Singapore. In order to achieve this goal, a series of numerical calculation and building simulation are utilized. A total of 32 cases, considering different urban morphologies, are identified and evaluated to give better a understanding on the implication of urban forms, with the reference to the effect of varying density, height and greenery density. The results show that GnPR, which related to the present of greenery, have the most significant impact on the energy consumption by reducing the temperature by up to 2 °C. The results also strongly indicate an energy saving of 4.5% if the urban elements are addressed effectively.     

芬兰低能耗建筑物

1993～1998年间,芬兰国家技术研究中心VTT建筑技术研究所在若干企业的协助下进行了一项名为RAKET的低能耗建筑物研发项目。他们按计划修建了系列独户住宅、3套公寓建筑、一座太阳房和一栋办公楼。据VTT建筑技术研究所计划主任MarkkuVirtanen教授说,上述建筑基于如下特点具有低能耗与优良的居住舒适性:1.墙壁、地板与房顶等外围护结构具有优异的隔热性,2.现代高能效窗,3.具备热回收功能的机械通风系统,4.精心建造以保证建筑的气密效果。通风与气密的重要性。Virtanen指出,外围护与低U值窗的有效隔热再加上具备热回收能力的通风设备对建…     

China building energy consumption: Situation,challenges and corresponding measures

As one of the biggest parts of total national energy consumption (TNEC), building energy consumption (BEC) catches public eyes and has been regarded as a crucial problem of the current society. For the past 20 years, BEC in china has been increasing at a high speed. To curb the rapid growing of BEC, china has enforced and implemented a series of policies. These include enforcing BEC constraints on new building projects, promoting more environment friendly building designs, establishing a more sophisticated legislation for building energy conservation, and increasing the total budget in the area of BEC control. This article analyzed china BEC situation and the challenges. As the main point, the measures required by China government to improve building energy efficiency were introduced as well.     

Estimating nonprocess energy from building energy consumption

From this research, an important technique for estimating the nonprocess energy (also known as overhead energy) in industrial and manufacturing buildings was examined. The building energy data for six industrial facilities were collected over multiple months in which production varied over these months. This technique then used a regression of monthly building energy or utilities' use versus monthly production rate. The nonprocess energy was estimated for each facility as the energy extrapolated to zero production in these regression models. The range of monthly production data was also used to determine a midpoint or average production at each facility and the corresponding average total building energy (process and nonprocess). The energy at zero production, as a percentage of the midpoint production energy, was thus the nonprocess energy percentage. In addition, the zero production power intensity (in watts per square meter) was compared to industry average nonprocess energy intensities (heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation) to interpret the nature and possible improvement in nonprocess energy.     

我国高校能源消耗模型构建与能效策略研究

以构建能源消耗模型为切入点,剖析我国高校的用能现状、特点及发展趋势,对我国高校的节能潜力进行量化分析,提出我国高校开展能效管理的策略。     

建筑节能材料漂珠的性能研究

对漂珠、闭孔珍珠岩、聚苯乙烯颗粒及酚醛树脂板等6种不同建筑保温材料进行性能测试,结果表明:漂珠的导热系数为0.035W/(m.K),抗压强度为350.0MPa,耐火度为1690℃,吸水率为5%,是集多功能于一体的新型无机保温材料,在建筑节能中起重要作用。     

A Danish case: portfolio evaluation and its impact on energy efficiency policy

A political agreement from 2005 stated that an evaluation of the entire Danish energy efficiency policy portfolio must be carried out before the end of 2008, with the aim to assess the following: (1) Is the policy portfolio sufficient to meet the energy efficiency targets? (2) Do the policies enable the national goals to be met in a cost-effective manner? (3) Is the overall design of the policy portfolio appropriate? The evaluation gave recommendations on how to improve and develop the portfolio, mainly using cost-effectiveness as criteria. The evaluation was completed in December 2008, and this paper presents the main findings and the subsequent impact on Danish policy. A key lesson learned is the importance of including all energy efficiency policies in the evaluation. Examining the entire portfolio of policies (as opposed to only selected policies) gave way to findings that would otherwise not have been captured. With its broad perspective, the evaluation found that the policy instruments prioritised the commercial and industrial sectors less than the household and public sectors. The recommendations made by the authors contributed to the implementation of new taxes for the commercial and industrial sectors together with the reform of the Electricity Saving Trust to a Centre for Energy Savings charged with energy savings within all sectors, except transport—both which have been important steps towards a more cost-effective solution.     

The analysis of energy consumption of a commercial building in Tianjin,China

According to statistics and field investigation, the energy consumption situation and reality of commercial building is described in this paper. As the first step of large-scale public building energy efficiency supervision system encouraged by central government of China, the energy consumption of several typical commercial buildings and public buildings was analyzed in detail. The main contents of investigation are as follows: basic information of building, operational record of energy consumption equipment, energy consumption of indoor equipments, energy-efficiency assessment of energy consumption systems and equipments, investigation of behavior energy saving, etc. On this basis further analysis and diagnosis including indoor thermal and humid environment, operation state of air-conditioning water system, operation state of air-conditioning duct system and operation management of air-conditioning system were implemented. The results show that the most energy consumption of buildings in this city is commercial buildings, which can reach to about 240 W/m² per year. Further analysis tells that air conditioning systems play the major role of building energy consumption, and building energy saving has great potential in this city. In this paper, the ways of diagnosis work for building energy consumption are also described and discussed. Reasonable test, diagnosis and analysis are meaningful for building energy efficiency retrofit and management.     

某办公楼动态能耗模拟与节能分析

以eQUEST能耗模拟软件为工具,为重庆市某办公楼建立了能耗仿真模型,分析了空调设定温度、制冷机COP值、室内照明密度对能耗的影响,并对三者相应的节能潜力进行了比较分析。结果表明,建筑电耗随照明密度的减小线性降低,照明密度对建筑节能有着巨大的影响。     

Potential energy savings and environmental impact by implementing energy efficiency standard for household refrigerators in China

With the rapid economic growth and improvement in standard of living, Chinese people are employing more and more household appliances to make their living convenient and comfortable, of which refrigerators are indispensable. Because refrigerators operate continuously irrespective of seasons and regions, the total electricity consumption of refrigerators is huge and consequently causes severe energy-related environmental issues. China has been paying more and more attention to this and issued a national energy efficiency standard, GB12021.2-2003, for refrigerators. This paper first describes the standard briefly. Then it develops a mathematic model to evaluate the potential energy savings and environmental impacts of the standard. The estimated results indicate implementing the standard will save large energy, as well as benefit greatly to environment. Thus, it is very necessary to implement energy efficiency standard for refrigerators in China.     

A review on the prediction of building energy consumption

The energy performance in buildings is influenced by many factors, such as ambient weather conditions, building structure and characteristics, the operation of sub-level components like lighting and HVAC systems, occupancy and their behavior. This complex situation makes it very difficult to accurately implement the prediction of building energy consumption. This paper reviews recently developed models for solving this problem, which include elaborate and simplified engineering methods, statistical methods and artificial intelligence methods. Previous research work concerning these models and relevant applications are introduced. Based on the analysis of previous work, further prospects are proposed for additional research reference.     

电动汽车的能耗效率分析及提高能耗经济性的研究

通过对比电动汽车和内燃机汽油车的热效率及能耗,得出电动汽车的热效率及能耗明显优于内燃机汽油车的结论,并推断出降低电动汽车的运行能耗、提高其经济性是推动电动汽车产业化的关键因素之一。从整车动力系统、电池以及充电设备等几个方面分析了提高电动汽车能耗经济的途径,指出了今后需要重点研究的关键性问题。     

大型机关办公建筑能耗与节能分析研究

以大型机关办公建筑为审计对象,以沈阳市某大型机关办公建筑为例,通过对该机关办公建筑的能源审计以及数据的详细统计分析,得出该类建筑的用能特点和耗能状况,并在此基础上提出相应的节能对策,为我国建立大型办公建筑节能运行监管体系,开展机关办公建筑能源审计工作提供一定参考。     

我国建筑耗能状况与发达国家有多大差距

我国建筑用能耗很高,与发达国家相比,有很大的差距,其表现首先是建筑保温状况的差距。由于建筑标准的不同,我国建筑保温状况与发达国家差得很多。发达国家普遍采用高效保温材料复合的墙体和屋面,以及密封性能好的多层窗。如果以北京传统的37cm砖墙的多层住宅作为代表,与气候条件相近的发达国家的建筑进行对比,建筑外围护结构保温隔热性能很差,外墙、外窗漏风严重,因此,我们的单位能耗,外墙为发达国家的4～5倍,屋顶为2.5～5.5倍,外窗为1.5～2.2倍,门窗气密性为3～6倍。与此同时,发达国家普遍采用能够调节控制和用热计量的采暖系统,锅炉和管网…     

Impact of energy efficiency upgrade retrofits on the residential energy consumption in Canada

The impact of various energy efficiency upgrade scenarios on the annual energy consumption of the Canadian housing stock is assessed using the Canadian Residential Energy End‐use Model (CREEM). The energy efficiency upgrade scenarios that are considered include major retrofits, such as the improvement of the house envelope by adding insulation, and the replacement of the existing heating system and appliances by higher efficiency units, as well as minor retrofits, such as lighting fixture, thermostat, showerhead and aerator upgrades that reduce energy consumption. The economic feasibility of each upgrade was assessed using the indicator ‘energy savings per dollar investment’. The results indicate that the energy savings potential of the retrofits is rather small, resulting in savings of 0–8 per cent of the total energy consumption of the Canadian housing stock. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How energy efficiency fails in the building industry

This paper examines how energy efficiency fails in the building industry based on many years of research into the integration of energy efficiency in the construction of buildings and sustainable architecture in Norway. It argues that energy-efficient construction has been seriously restrained by three interrelated problems: (1) deficiencies in public policy to stimulate energy efficiency, (2) limited governmental efforts to regulate the building industry, and (3) a conservative building industry. The paper concludes that innovation and implementation of new, energy-efficient technologies in the building industry requires new policies, better regulations and reformed practices in the industry itself.