[photopress:Beijing_hotel.jpg,full,alignright]Almost half of the electricity used in Beijing’s residential buildings is consumed by 311 hotels rated three stars or more. Thus 5.4 percent of residential floor area uses over 50 per cent of electricity.
Chen Huaiwei, director of the energy conservation center of the municipal commission of development and reform, released this statistic at the launch of the joint venture of China’s Tell-how Sci-tech Co. Ltd., Panasonic and Mitsui. The new company, Beijing Tsinghua Tell-how Intellectual Sci-tech Co. Ltd., will offer advanced technologies for energy conservation in office buildings and hotels.
Buildings, especially those for public use, have been blamed as one of the major energy wasters in China because of inefficiency in building materials, lighting, air-conditioning and heating.
A State Council decision on improving China’s energy conservation last week requires new residential and office buildings to be constructed in line with the average energy consumption standard of 50 per cent of the average in the early 1980s. Even more economies are demanded of the big cities. 35 per cent average energy consumption standard should be promoted in the four municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chingqing as well as major cities in north China.
It sounds an immense cut in the use of electricity but none of this is quite as difficult as it stands. Replacing every light bulb with a flourescent bulb — same light output, lower power use — saves serious amounts of power. Setting rooms to turn off air conditioning when not used has become common practice in many hotel chains. Building hotels so that they use far less power to keep cool, or warm. Introducing solar power for hotel signs and floodlighting. These have all be done elsewhere at relatively low capital cost but with major power savings. The government’s aims in this area are achievable.
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