[photopress:energy_police.jpg,full,alignright]The eastern city of Yangzhou is recruiting 100 ‘energy police’, or inspectors to check on energy saving practices. This is already happening in Beijing. The illustration is what you get if you ask Google Images for China energy police. It looks more like a normal police officer to me.
The ‘energy police’ check whether energy consumption in offices, hotels, schools, shopping malls, supermarkets and other big buildings meet national standards such as keeping the air conditioning no cooler than 26 degrees Celsius and heating no higher than 20 degrees Celsius. On that basis almost every major building in Australia would be in serious strife. And all of the hotels in Bangkok and probably Hong Kong. So China is leading the way.
If energy consumption is found to be too high, the ‘energy police’ will issue a warning note. The owners of the buildings could be fined if they neglect the warning.
The local government said air conditioners account for 30-35% of power consumption in Yangzhou during the summer and if they operate according to national standards a great deal of energy will be saved.
The central government of China launched a week-long campaign to raise awareness of the need to save energy, with government ministers saying all sectors of society have a responsibility to reduce consumption.
Under its latest five-year plan, the government wants to reduce energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by 20% by 2010. One way of doing this, which seems not have received enough attention, is heat insulating homes and offices so that they do not need as much power. By the intelligent use of insulation 20% is quite achievable.
Source: China View