China implemented a series of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for over 30 appliances, voluntary energy efficiency label for 40 products and a mandatory energy information label that covers 19 products to date. However, the impact of these programs and their savings potential has not been evaluated on a consistent basis.

This paper uses modeling to estimate the energy saving and CO₂ emission reduction potential of the appliances standard and labeling program for products for which standards are currently in place, under development or those proposed for development in 2010 under three scenarios that differ in the pace and stringency of MEPS development. In addition to a baseline “Frozen Efficiency” scenario at 2009 MEPS level, the “Continued Improvement Scenario” (CIS) reflects the likely pace of post-2009 MEPS revisions, and the likely improvement at each revision step. The “Best Practice Scenario” (BPS) examined the potential of an achievement of international best practice efficiency in broad commercial use today in 2014.

This paper concludes that under “CIS”, cumulative electricity consumption could be reduced by 9503 TWh, and annual CO₂ emissions of energy used for all 37 products would be 16% lower than in the frozen efficiency scenario. Under a “BPS” scenario for a subset of products, cumulative electricity savings would be 5450 TWh and annual CO₂ emissions reduction of energy used for 11 appliances would be 35% lower.

Prepared by: Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory

China first adopted minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) in 1989. Today, there are standards for a wide range of domestic, commercial and selected industrial requipment. In 1999, China launched a voluntary endorsement label, which has grown to cover over 40 products including water-saving products. Further, in 2005, China started a mandatory energy information label that initially covered two products and in 2007 was extended to cover four products total including: air conditioners; household refrigerators; clothes washers; and unitary air conditioners. These programs have had an important impact in reducing the energy consumption of appliances in China.

China has built up a strong infrastructure to develop and implement standards. Historically, however, the government’s primary focus has been on the technical requirements for specifying efficiency performance. Less attention has been paid to monitoring and enforcement with a minimal commitment of resources and little expansion of administrative capacity in this area. Thus, market compliance with both mandatory standard and labeling programs has been questionable. Furthermore, actual energy savings have quite possibly been undermined as a result. The establishment of a regularized monitoring system for tracking compliance with the mandatory standard and energy information label programs in China is a major area for program improvement.

Over the years, CLASP has partnered with several Chinese institutions to promote energy-efficient products in China. CLASP, together with its implementing partner Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), has assisted China in developing and updating the above-mentioned standards and labeling programs. Because of the increasing need for the development of a monitoring system to track compliance with the standard, CLASP, with support from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ), has expanded its on-going collaboration with the China National Institute of Standards (CNIS) to include enforcement and monitoring. CNIS has already begun working on the issue of compliance. In early 2007, LBNL compiled a report, with the support of METI, summarizing the findings from these activities and indicating China’s progress to date. The report concluded that although the existing legal basis for monitoring and enforcement is sufficient— with multiple laws and regulations defining the responsibility of each government agency and specifying a system of fines and penalties for non-compliance — compared with international best practices, there is still a big gap in China’s monitoring and enforcement efforts for mandatory standards and labels.

Authors: Nan Zhou, Nina Zheng, David Fridley (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory); Rouhong Wang (China National Institute of Standardization); Christine Egan (CLASP).

CLASP and the China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) published a Chinese version of the S&L Guidebook. Similar to the English edition, The Chinese S&L Guidebook offers comprehensive guidelines on designing, developing, implementing and maintaining an energy efficiency standards and labeling program.

This second edition of the guidebook was prepared over the course of 2007, four years after the preparation of the first edition, with a significant contribution from the authors and reviewers cited. The contents of the Chinese S&L Guidebook are available for download below.

Lead Authors: Stephen Wiel and James E. McMahon

Note: To display the Chinese language correctly, you may need to download the Chinese version of Adobe Acrobat Reader here.

Published in March 2007, this report looks in detail at the impact of China’s Appliance Standards and Labeling Program.

CLASP, with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) as a primary partner, has helped China implement a robust energy efficiency standards and labeling program (S&L) that includes: minimum energy performance standards; mandatory, information labeling; voluntary, endorsement labeling; and a residential energy consumption survey. China’s S&L program has transformed several product markets while improving the nation’s economic efficiency and contributed to China’s greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation efforts.

In the years of collaboration, China has, with international assistance, implemented a series of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS), including mandatory standards for all of the major appliances. At the same time, it has expanded the coverage of its voluntary energy efficiency label to over 40 products, including residential, commercial and selected industrial products. And, since 2005, household refrigerators and airconditioners are subject to the use of mandatory, information labels as well with the expectation that clothes washers will be added to the program soon.

As China’s capacity for S&L implementation has grown, the nature of CLASP’s support has shifted from technical training and capacity-building for the domestic program to assistance in extending market transformation effects internationally through harmonization of efficiency specifications. Most notably, in 2005, China, Australia, and the US adopted a harmonized set of efficiency specifications for external power supplies, based on a single testing standard. Current efforts support both the application of China’s S&L programs into new market transformation programs domestically (such as government procurement) as well as the expansion of China’s outreach internationally in additional harmonization efforts.

The essence of CLASP’s work in China has been technology transfer, transferring to China the last 20 years of experience and toolkits that have been developed around the world to support S&L programs. The success relies heavily on cooperation with a wide range of organizations and groups and training of Chinese counterparts. For example, LBNL alone provided 196 person-weeks of training for 90 officials from five agencies, split roughly evenly between training at LBNL and training inside China.

S&L has become a prominent element in China’s increasing emphasis on more sustainable energy development and its recently announced goal to reduce energy intensity of the economy by 20% by 2010. Without question, expansion and strengthening of the energy standards requirements and labeling criteria are an important policy option to assist China in achieving this target. On an individual product basis, comparisons of certain Chinese S&L levels with those in use international have demonstrated that there is room for further improvement and a large potential for additional energy savings from the program.

To date, however, the impact of the first phase of the S&L program (1999-2005) has not been evaluated on a consistent basis. Such an evaluation is timely, since it can provide policymakers and other energy analysts with details of the successes and shortcomings of the program as well as a guide to targets for further strengthening of the program.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan.

Authors: David Fridley; Nathaniel Aden; Nan Zhou; and Jiang Lin/ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

The minimum energy efficiency standards program for household appliances in China was initiated in 1989 when the former State Bureau of Technical Supervision announced the first batch of efficiency standards for eight consumer products. Since 1996, CLASP and its implementing partner, LBNL, have assisted China in developing 11 minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for 9 products and endorsement labels for 11 products including: refrigerators; air conditioners; clothes washers; televisions; printers; computers; monitors; fax machines; copiers; DVD/VCD players; external power supplies; and set-top boxes (under development).

Increasingly, attention is being placed on maximizing energy savings from China’s standards and labeling efforts in order to meet the recently announced goal of reducing China’s energy intensity by 20 percent by 2010—a part of China’s reorientation to decreasing its rapid rate of growth in energy consumption.

Before 2003, China’s traditional approach to standards development involved small increases in efficiency requirements for implementation within 6 months of a standard’s approval. Since 2003, China has adopted a new approach in setting efficiency standards. This new approach involves the development of two tiers of standards—one for initial implementation and a second tier at a more aggressive level of energy efficiency for implementation three to five years later. The second-tier standard is also referred to as a “reach standard.”

The development of the reach standard is a major milestone in China’s standard program. Besides specifying increased energy savings at some future date, it offers a potential avenue to further increase energy savings by accelerating the adoption of the second tier reach standards for applicable products.

CLASP, with the support of the China Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP) of the Energy Foundation (EF), has previously participated in a pilot program to support the city of Shanghai to accelerate the adoption of the second tier reach standard for room air conditioners in Shanghai prior to national implementation. In light of Shanghai’s severe electricity shortage in 2004 and 2005, this approach promised both to save energy and to reduce Shanghai’s peak load challenge.

This report is presented in five sections. After the introduction, Section 2 analyzes the distribution of the efficiency of refrigerators and air-conditioners in China based on data collected by the China Energy Label Center for the mandatory energy information label program. The results provide an assessment of the adoption of reach standards for these two products. Section 3 summarizes on-going collaborations with Shanghai and presents both the impact and an analysis of barriers to local adoption of reach standard for air conditioners. Section 4 offers suggestions for local governments on how to move forward in adopting reach standards in their localities and concludes with a summary of the results and a plan for developing local capacity in order to achieve success in adopting reach standards.

Authors: Jiang Lin & David Fridley; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

CLASP has collaborated over the years with several Chinese institutions  to promote energy efficiency in China, enhance the capabilities of Chinese institutions that promote energy efficiency, and understand the dynamics of energy use in China. CLASP, with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) as its primary Implementing Partner, has helped China implement a robust energy efficiency standards and labeling program (S&L) that includes minimum standards, voluntary energy labeling, and a residential energy consumption survey. China’s S&L program has transformed several product markets and accelerated the pace of China’s GHG mitigation.

This report analyzes minimum energy performance standards (MEPS), test procedures, comparative labeling, and endorsement labeling for refrigerators, freezers, and room air conditioners in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China and other developing and transition nations.

Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Mandatory Efficiency Performance Standards (MEPS) and Test Procedures

A. Refrigerators and freezers

i) USA

ii) Canada

iii) Mexico

iv) China

v) Other Developing and Transition Countries

B. Room air conditioners

i) USA

ii) Canada

iii) Mexico

iv) China

v) Other Developing and Transition Countries

III. Comparison Labels

A. U.S. Energy Guide Program

B. Canada’s EnerGuide program

C. Mexico’s comparative labeling program

D. China’s labeling program

IV. Endorsement Labels

A. U.S. ENERGY STAR program

B. Description of Canada’s Energy Star – High Efficiency Label

C. Description of Mexico’s Sello FIDE program

D. Voluntary Labeling in China

File versions:

• English
• Portuguese

Author: Howard Geller

Published in March 2005. The feasibility research of the reach of energy efficiency standards in China was separated into four stages: (1) Collecting and analyzing related documents both at home and abroad (2) Investigating the market throughout the country (3) Setting the technique indexes and model analysis (4) Drafting the research report.

Information from: China National Institute for Standardization (CNIS)

The sales of clothes washers in China consist of several general varieties. Some use more energy (with or without including hot water energy use) and some use more water. Both energy and water are in short supply in China. This poses the question – how do you trade off water versus energy in establishing efficiency standards? This paper discusses how China dealt with this situation and how it established minimum efficiency standards for clothes washers.

Authors: Peter J. Biermayer and Jiang Lin; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

Information from: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE)

This paper was presented at the Earth Technologies Forum (ETF), which took place on April 22-24, 2003 at the Hyatt Regency in Washington, DC. The forum was co-sponsored by the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Energy, US Agency for International Development, Australian Greenhouse Office, Environment Canada, Industry Canada, Netherlands Reduction Plan for Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases, International Climate Change Partnership, Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, United Nations Environment Program, and United Nations Development Program.

The paper focuses on China’s appliance efficiency standard and labeling programs since the publication of the first set of standards for eight types of appliance products (refrigerators, room air conditioners, clothes washers, television sets, automatic rice cookers, radio receivers, electric fans and electric irons) in 1989.

Today, China has developed an active and comprehensive energy efficiency standard and labeling program that includes minimum energy efficiency standards, a voluntary energy label, and a proposed energy information label. China has enacted three more new product standards or revisions of existing standards, with several more under review and development. The standard for fluorescent lamp ballasts was enacted in 1999. Standard revisions for household refrigerators and room air conditioners were completed in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Standards for compact and linear fluorescent lamps and clothes washers are in the final review process and should be published soon.

Currently, the development agenda for standards and labels is set by the China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) and the China Certification Center for Energy Conservation (CECP) in consultation with leading government agencies (such as the State Economic and Trade Commission and State Administration on Standards). Other stakeholders are notified only after the standard development is well underway. In the future, a clear timeline for standard and label development and revision would reduce the uncertainties that manufacturers face and thus make it easier to comply with the standard and label requirements.

The Earth Technologies Forum program is available for download here.

Author: Jiang Lin

Information from: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)