Responsible for two-thirds of China’s total energy consumption, heavy industry is the main contributor to China’s deteriorating air quality.

The Industry Program supports China’s goal to decrease energy consumption in large industrial enterprises through (1) Energy Efficiency Agreements (EEAs), modeled after European sector targets; (2) equipment standards, including efficiency standards for electric motors, fans, pumps, air compressors, etc., and (3) tax and fiscal policy measures.  The Program focuses on China’s most energy-consumptive industries, including steel and cement.

As China relies on growing industry to reach its national economic development goals, industrial production—along with it energy consumption and carbon emissions—has been increasing with abandon: over the past 15 years almost all sectors more than doubled and some almost quadrupled their output. Much of this energy consumption could be avoided: average energy consumption per unit GDP in China’s major industrial sectors is 40 percent higher than world best practice. China cannot meet its energy-related development goals without vastly improving industrial energy efficiency. China’s desire to meet these goals is forging a commitment to improve industrial energy efficiency and creating a valuable opportunity to advance energy efficiency policies in the industrial sector.  For example, the Eleventh Five-Year Plan calls for, and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has launched, a 'Top-1000 Energy Efficiency Program' aiming to cut the energy consumption of China's largest industrial facilities, in five years, which could reduce China's total carbon dioxide emissions by 242 million tons.

With less than four percent of global GDP, China consumes 40 percent of the world’s coal, half the cement, a third of the iron, a quarter of the steel. Source: China Sustainable Energy Program.

Photo: Patty Fong