In 2002 the municipal government commenced a program to replace coal-burning stoves with electric heaters in hutong homes, and the program had reached more than 160,000 families by November 2009. In Gulou West Community in central Beijing over 1,000 homes bade farewell to the smudgy coal stoves in 2008. “For an energy-storage electric heater, every room is entitled to a subsidy of RMB 1,200 from the government, and the family pays the rest of the cost – RMB 500 to 600,” said community leader Ma Chenhui. According to Du Shaozhong, deputy chief of the Municipal Environmental Protection Administration, inhabitants are eligible for the discounted rate of RMB 0.3 per kwh during the heating season between the hours of 10 pm to 6 am the next day. What’s more, homes with electric heaters receive a government allowance of RMB 0.2 per kwh for their heating bills.

Ma Defeng, a resident of Gulou West, has two electric heaters at home which keep the indoor temperature at 18 ºC, even on the coldest days. “I paid only RMB 900 for heating last year, compared with RMB 1,200 in previous years,” Ma said contently. “When the government teams came to install the heaters, they also modified the roof with better insulation.” Statistics from the Municipal Environmental Protection Administration show that emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide fell by 190 tons and 10,000 tons respectively in the 2009 heating season, thanks to a drop in the reliance on coal.

Hello Cozy Comfort

In 1986 China began to implement energy efficiency standards for residential buildings and has raised the bar every ten years. The standard for buildings built between 1986 and 1995 is the equivalent of 17.5 kilograms of coal per square meter per heating season. The amount was tightened up to no more than 12.5 kilograms for buildings dated 1996 to 2005, and the most stringent, 8.75 kilograms, eventually kicked in for those built in 2006 and later. Beijing enforced the 8.75 kilogram level in 2004, ahead of the national pace. So far 93 million square meters of residential space, which constitutes 35 percent of the total living space in the city, lag behind this rate; these homes require 2.17 times the energy for heating a volume of unit space as those meeting the 8.75-kilogram standard. Energy-saving renovations are scheduled to roll out on more homes, converting totally 6 million square meters in Beijing by the end of this year.

In the Huixin West Street Community, two kilometers from the famous “Bird’s Nest” Olympic venue, 576 apartments underwent government-sponsored weatherization from September 2007 to June 2008. The benefits were immediately evident. When the outdoor temperature had risen to 34 ºC, it was 28 ºC in Jiang Shuzhen’s apartment on the fourth floor. “The air conditioner was off, the electric fan was still, but the room temperature was 3 ºC lower than it would have been in previous summers. This means one more month without air conditioning this year,” said the retiree.

The 18-story No.12 Tower of the community, with a floorage of 11,000 square meters, was built in 1988. Its shell of precast cement plates is a hallmark of buildings from that era, the bane of ventilation and heat preservation efforts. The architects who renovated the tower adopted exterior insulation technology provided by a German company; the product conforms to more stringent European standards. The windows were transformed from casement to pivot-type for better insulation and at the same time ventilation holes were opened in the walls of each room. The heating system has been changed from the series-wound single-pipe design to a vertical dual-pipe one, resulting in more efficient and even heat distribution among suites in the building. New steel radiators, each with a valve that allows residents to control the temperature, permit finer response to heating and cooling needs. Upgrading of boilers and the heat transfer system was also among the methods used to save 50,000 cubic meters of natural gas and reduce 105 tons of carbon dioxide emission annually.