Predicting the impact of upgrading Chinese building design

In order to reduce building energy consumption, Chinese government has revised the Chinese building design standard. In the new guide the use of individual room temperature control is highly recommended for new and refurbishment buildings. However, critical evidence on how this improvement can have an impact on the building energy consumption is not clear. This paper is aiming to explore how the upgrading residential standards affect the building energy performance. In order to evaluate its impact on the building energy consumption, two buildings were chosen: one complying with the old Chinese building design standard, while the other complies with the new standard. Additionally, the real time measured data from a typical residential building in China are used to validate a dynamic building performance simulation

The impact of updated building design standards on the thermal environment and energy performance of dwellings in China

Energy demand reduction has become a global issue involving all countries, including China. As major energy consumers in today’s society, the need for buildings to be built and operated more energy efficiently is well recognized. In 1995, the national standard on building energy efficiency in China (JGJ 26-95) was refined and updated to become the new residential Buildings standard (JGJ 26-2010) published in 2010. In the new version, many changes have been made to support the construction of more energy efficient buildings in China. For example, in the new standard, all buildings are highly recommended to install personal control on the heating system, such as by Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs), together with ‘pay for what you use’ tariffs. Previous practice comprised uncontrolled heating with payment based on floor area. This paper evaluates the impact of updated building design standards on thermal conditions and energy consumption in Chinese residential buildings. In the study, two types of residential buildings have been chosen, one complying with the old Chinese building design standard, while the other complies with the new standard. The study was carried out in seven apartments in each building, with a longitudinal monitoring of indoor air temperature, outdoor air temperature, window position and energy consumption. The impact of the new design standard has been evaluated in relation to a number of aspects, that include building construction, indoor thermal environment, occupant behaviour, thermal comfort and building energy consumption. It is concluded that updating the building design standard has had a positive influence on the building conditions and energy consumption

Assessing of thermal comfort in multi-stories [sic] old and new residential buildings in China

This survey was carried out in two sets of dwellings in cold zone of North China in winter, that is, 7 new and 7 old apartments, starting from 15th February and ending at 15th March of 2014,the winter season when heating is on. During the survey, occupants' thermal sensation, clothing insulation etc. were collected by subjective questionnaires, and important environmental parameters were measured concurrently by proper sensors, according to the ISO 7730, ISO 7726 and ISO 10551. The results show that the correlations between Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and people's Actual Mean Vote (AMV) in new and old apartments. In addition, percentage of acceptable of occupants is higher in new apartments when compared with that in the old apartments. Another finding from this study is that females respond worse thermal acceptability to indoor thermal environment, when compared with males in both new and old apartments