In October 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Completely, Accurately and Comprehensively Implementing the New Development Concept and Doing a Good Job of Carbon Peak Carbon Neutrality”, which clarified the timetable and roadmap for China to achieve carbon peak carbon neutrality. By 2022 In March 2019, the Chinese Academy of Engineering released the major consulting research results “China’s Carbon Peak Carbon Neutralization Strategy and Path”, focusing on industrial structure, energy, electricity, industry, construction, transportation, carbon removal, etc., to systematically carry out China’s carbon neutralization strategy Peak’s carbon neutralization strategy and path research and put forward eight strategies, the first of which is: “conservation priority strategy, uphold the concept of energy conservation as the first energy, and continuously improve the energy efficiency of the whole society.”
The construction industry has always been an important area of energy consumption and carbon emissions. According to the data published in the “Research Report on China’s Building Energy Consumption (2020)”, the total carbon emissions of my country’s overall construction process in 2018 was 4.93 billion tons, accounting for 4.93 billion tons of the country’s carbon emissions. The total energy consumption of the whole process is 2.147 billion tons, accounting for 46.5% of the total energy consumption in the country, and the energy consumption of building operation accounts for 25% of the total energy consumption of the whole process of buildings.
With nearly 20 years of comprehensive service and operation experience in the field of investment and construction in China, China State Construction Research Group, with its rich industry ecosystem construction and promotion cases, has more detailed insights into the development trend of green buildings that reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption. Case observation. Wei Guoqiang, director of the Green and Low-Carbon Development Research Center of China State Construction Research Group, provided another set of data: further subdivided from the whole chain of the construction industry, the carbon emissions in the production stage of building materials were 2.72 billion tons, accounting for 28.3% of the country’s carbon emissions. 55.21% of the total emissions in the whole process of construction; the carbon emissions in the construction stage are 100 million tons, accounting for 1% of the national carbon emissions, accounting for 1.93% of the total emissions in the whole process of construction; and the construction operation that is easier to achieve carbon emission reduction Phase, the corresponding carbon emissions are 2.112 billion tons, accounting for 21.9% of the national carbon emissions and 42.87% of the total emissions in the whole construction process.
Because of this, Wei Guoqiang analyzed and judged: “Promoting green buildings and building energy conservation is a key path and an important measure for the construction industry to achieve the double carbon target.”
Policy Direction: There is Huge Space for Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption Reduction in the Construction Industry
The promotion of green buildings in the construction industry has a long history. According to Wei Guoqiang, as early as the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” to the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, major national science and technology projects have involved building energy conservation, green buildings, etc. A large number of scientific research achievements have strongly supported the development of building energy conservation. The “14th Five-Year Plan” and the outline of long-term goals for 2035 point out the need to promote clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient use of energy, and further promote low-carbon transformation in the fields of industry, construction, and transportation.
In July 2020, seven ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly issued the Notice on Printing and Distributing the Action Plan for Creating Green Buildings, specifying that by 2022, the proportion of green buildings in new urban buildings will reach 70%. At the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued an announcement on the national standard “General Specifications for Building Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Utilization”, requiring that building carbon emissions be included in mandatory calculations from April 1, 2022.
The “14th Five-Year Plan for Building Energy Conservation and Green Building Development” also proposed that by 2025, the area of energy-saving renovation of existing buildings will be more than 350 million square meters, and the construction of ultra-low energy consumption and nearly zero energy consumption buildings will be more than 50 million square meters. Prefabricated buildings accounted for 30% of new urban buildings in the year, the installed capacity of solar photovoltaic in new buildings across the country was more than 50 million kilowatts, the application area of geothermal energy buildings was more than 100 million square meters, and the replacement rate of urban buildings with renewable energy reached 8%. The proportion of electricity consumption in energy consumption exceeds 55%.
At present, my country has achieved remarkable results in reducing emissions in the construction sector through a series of measures. The “Research Report on China’s Building Energy Consumption (2020)” shows that the growth rate of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the entire building process in the country has dropped from 7.4% during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period to 7% during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period. During the period, it fell further to 3.1%. In this regard, Wei Guoqiang judged: “The field of building carbon reduction has long been regarded as a key area for in-depth exploration by the majority of enterprises, especially green buildings, prefabricated construction methods, ultra-low energy consumption buildings and near zero energy consumption buildings, and new building materials. There are a lot of opportunities for growth.”
Technical line: Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is coming
According to Wei Guoqiang, the current technical routes for realizing green photovoltaic buildings are mainly divided into two categories: the traditional BAPV (Building Attached Photovoltaic, referring to solar photovoltaic power generation systems installed on existing buildings) and the emerging BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic, referring to the The technology of integrating solar power generation products into buildings, that is, building photovoltaic integration).
BAPV is mainly used in the reconstruction of idle spaces in buildings. Common photovoltaic modules are usually fixed on color steel tiles or cement roofs through brackets. In addition to roof applications, BIPV can also be used as photovoltaic curtain walls, photovoltaic sunshades, photovoltaic greenhouses, etc., with more application scenarios. Compared with BAPV, BIPV can make the building more beautiful as a whole. The characteristics of not needing other fixed structures also make BIPV safer and have a longer service life. It also has an absolute advantage in price. Compared with BAPV, BIPV saves about About 160 yuan.
Especially from the perspective of cost of electricity, BIPV has more significant advantages. Shaanxi Longji New Energy Co., Ltd.’s first old plant renovation BIPV project was built on the roof of Shaanxi Thomson Power Technology Co., Ltd.’s plant. The power generation capacity is about 250,000 kWh, which means that the total power generation capacity in the next 25 years will be about 5.63 million kWh, which can save 1,931 tons of standard coal, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5,349 tons, and reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 161 tons.
According to the calculation of the BIPV solution issued by the listed company Center Co., Ltd., based on the calculation of the roof of the 50,000-square-meter factory building in Beijing, assuming that the peak sunshine hours are 1362 hours, the installed capacity of BIPV (1.2MW/10,000 square meters) or BAPV (1.0MW/10,000 square meters ), BIPV has a 10% increase in power generation compared with BAPV, while the operation and maintenance cost is 0.013 yuan/W lower. It can be seen that the benefits of BIPV in energy saving and carbon reduction are obvious.
From the perspective of environmental benefit performance, according to the results of the environmental benefit analysis of the photovoltaic curtain wall system in “BIPV’s Economic and Environmental Benefit Analysis——Taking the 120kWp Photovoltaic Curtain Wall of Yunnan Normal University as an Example”, the photovoltaic curtain wall system has a 25-year life cycle. The emission of pollutants produced by the combustion of about 834.66 tons of standard coal can be reduced, resulting in an environmental benefit of about 767,200 yuan.
Market Trend: Large-Scale Applications Lead Hundreds of Billion Markets
Based on good social benefits and economic value, BIPV is being rapidly promoted by various countries. China State Construction Research Institute provided a set of research data: In 2019 and 2020, the total installed capacity of BIPV in the world has reached 1.15GW and 2.3GW respectively, accounting for about 1% of the total installed capacity of photovoltaics in the world; According to the data released by the committee, my country’s BIPV installed capacity in 2020 has reached 709MW, accounting for about 70% of the world’s total BIPV installed capacity.
Wei Guoqiang also mentioned: “Becquerel Institute predicts that the installed capacity of BIPV in the European market will reach 500MW in 2023, while the installed capacity of BIPV in my country has exceeded this indicator.”
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has previously proposed that my country’s newly added prefabricated buildings will reach 630 million square meters in 2020, accounting for about 20% of the total new building area, that is, the newly added building area in 2020 will be about 3.15 billion square meters. The construction area of over 40 billion square meters will bring huge market potential to BIPV.
Recently, Shanghai issued the “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Planning and Construction of New Towns during the City’s 14th Five-Year Plan”. In terms of optimizing the energy supply structure and supporting Shanghai to take the lead in carbon peaking, distributed photovoltaics have become the focus of efforts. Nearly 20 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shandong, and Zhejiang have also issued policies to support the development of distributed photovoltaics. In particular, Zhejiang Province has proposed that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, 13 million kilowatts of new photovoltaic power generation will be added, and the building-integrated photovoltaic power generation system will be actively developed and applied.
In this regard, Wei Guoqiang analyzed and pointed out: “If the annual construction area of my country’s construction industry reaches about 4 billion square meters, assuming that 5% is replaced by BIPV, this alone is about 100 billion in market size, and BIPV is still in the initial stage before large-scale development. , and the future development space is huge.”
