Moving towards the era of low energy consumption and zero energy consumption, the construction energy-saving industry is accelerating its progress!

Source: Lanfu Finance Network

Green, low-carbon, energy-saving and environmental protection are the core principles followed by China's national economic development in recent years. As a strong construction country, China has strong advantages in basic industries and a huge consumer market. With the trend of green transformation and development, the concept of "building energy efficiency" has become increasingly popular. The construction industry has always been a major energy consumer, and with the implementation of a series of mandatory standards, building energy efficiency has also driven the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry. Entering the "14th Five Year Plan" stage, "ultra low energy consumption, near zero energy consumption, zero energy consumption buildings" have become new goals for industry transformation and development. The "14th Five Year Plan" for Building Energy Efficiency and Green Building Development has also clarified the nodes of reform and transformation. It is expected that by 2025, China's ultra-low energy and near zero energy buildings will reach over 50 million square meters, bringing huge business opportunities to multiple tracks in the construction industry chain.

Continuous Improvement of Energy Efficiency Standards in China's Building Energy Conservation Industry

The so-called building energy efficiency is not a single industrial concept, but a system that covers the entire lifecycle of the construction industry. Specifically, in the entire process of building planning, design, construction, renovation, and use, the latest energy-saving standards are used as a reference, and relevant design standards, structures, technologies, processes, equipment, materials, and products need to meet energy-saving requirements. This involves many units, such as in the cooling and heating system, to achieve comprehensive improvement in insulation performance and efficiency of heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems; In terms of energy consumption, it is necessary to strengthen the operation and management of building energy consumption systems, fully utilize renewable energy, and comprehensively reduce energy consumption.

Since the 1980s, China has been vigorously promoting energy-saving buildings from the perspective of industry standards. This is a gradual process, and the energy efficiency standards of China's construction industry are also gradually improving, moving from the 30% level to the 75% stage. Entering the 21st century, with the increasing popularity of low-carbon and energy-saving concepts, the development of the building energy-saving industry has begun to accelerate. Especially since 2020, with the official implementation of the "dual carbon" strategy in China, a large number of industry standards and mandatory policies related to building energy efficiency have been intensively released. Especially with the launch of the General Specification for Building Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Utilization, the average design energy consumption level of the construction industry in the new era has been clearly proposed, and refined indicators have been proposed for different regions based on the characteristics of China's resource distribution.

From the perspective of classification of building energy efficiency, there are mainly three forms of buildings based on the difficulty of achieving energy consumption goals: ultra-low, near zero, and zero energy buildings. From the perspective of China's building energy conservation industry and application situation, China has also been following the progressive law of ultra-low energy consumption, near zero energy consumption, and zero energy consumption and continuously striving. In addition to the widespread application of a large number of new technologies and materials, the reform and innovation of front-end design is the strongest throughout the entire lifecycle of construction projects.

Entering the digital era, with the building informatization becoming the mainstream trend, the extensive application of BIM (Building information modeling) technology has injected new momentum into building energy conservation. Because it can effectively improve the efficiency and quality of architectural design, enabling the rapid and accurate application of relevant energy-saving design measures. Based on 3D model design and Prefabricated building, the quality and efficiency of the whole life cycle of the construction project have been greatly improved, which has also fundamentally solved the problem of high energy consumption in the construction industry, and achieved a win-win situation of economy, energy conservation and quality in the construction industry.

Building energy-saving under the dual carbon target can drive multiple industries to advance together

China is the world's largest construction market, and the rapid development of the construction industry has not only continuously created market value, but also brought a series of negative issues. Especially in terms of energy consumption, the 2022 China Building Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions Research Report shows that two years ago, the total energy consumption of the entire construction process in China exceeded 2.2 billion tons of standard coal, accounting for as much as 45% of the total energy consumption in the country. At the same time, China's energy problems have become increasingly prominent, with rapid growth in energy consumption, high energy consumption, and low utilization rate. This contradicts the goal of building a refined and intensive society under the "dual carbon" goal and promoting energy conservation and emission reduction. Therefore, it is imperative to vigorously develop energy-saving buildings.

In addition to policy needs and social development needs, from the perspective of economic development, energy-saving buildings have strong linkage and wide relevance, which can drive multiple industries to advance side by side. From the perspective of building energy consumption sources, it involves multiple channels such as heating, air conditioning, hot water supply, cooking, lighting, household appliances, elevators, etc. It can be said that each channel corresponds to a huge industrial market, and even the Potential space of many markets is more than 100 billion. The application of a large number of new technologies and products will drive continuous innovation and upgrading in various segmented industries, creating incalculable market value.

From the perspective of market prospects, taking the development goals specified in the 14th Five Year Plan of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development as the standard, by 2025, China's Prefabricated building will account for 30% of new buildings; Steel structure buildings with advantages in building energy conservation and emission reduction account for over 15% of the newly built building area. Just two major branches of the building energy efficiency system are enough to support two trillion dollar blue ocean markets. It can be foreseen that as the full cycle management of the building energy-saving industry continues to accelerate, more industries related to the construction industry will also accelerate to align with new policies and standards, ushering in qualitative leaps at multiple levels.