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China is vast, abundant and particularly plentiful in energy sources, due to which it has obtained remarkable achievements on economy. However, its energy structure is too simple to support the sustainable development of economy as coal still contributes to the majority of energy consumption in China. As a consequence, Renewable Energy Law was enacted in 2005, and Chinese government announced a series of policies to boom renewable energy industry. Subsidy policy is one of the major forms of these policies. This paper aims to present these subsidy policies and to analyze their effects according to relative data in energy industry 2005–2013, to find out the deficiencies and enlighten possible policy improvements. The original intentions and abstracts of 5 different levels of subsidy related policies are summarized, and the effects in reality are attentively analyzed. It can be concluded that subsidy policies have different short-term effect on different renewable energies, and they all show some negative effect to a certain extent. 6 core problems are summarized in this paper, and remedy strategies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green roof is an effective energy efficiency measure to reduce the building cooling load in summer and heating load in winter, in addition, it can add ecological benefit and landscape value to the community. Therefore, it has attracted extensive attention worldwide. This paper studies the selection of planting materials, plant configuration patterns and plant growth medium of the green roofs in China, and presents the researches on ecological benefits, thermal performance, and applications of the green roofs in China. This paper also introduces and analyzes the green roofs development policies in China, including the incentive mechanism, laws and regulations, and finally presents the analysis and suggestions on their application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, solar thermal utilization (STU) has a great process in China, not only with a large scale commercial development, but also with an increasing number of scientific publications and patent applications. In this paper, several representative technologies of STU in China are studied based on an analysis of the relationship between patents and policies. Patent information of STU is collected and analyzed in terms of the time distribution, type distribution and technical trends. The main driving factor—energy policy—was discussed through the patent analysis. STU patents took off after the millennium and 85.8% of them came from the solar water heater. For conventional technologies, 94.2% of the granted patents were from companies and individuals, and the patents proposed by various research institutions were mainly in the technological beginning and technological maturity. Advanced technologies are still at a growth stage in China, and they have 412 patents in all and 70.5% of the patents were from systematic design and test method. Energy policies have played a significant role in promoting the progress of STU in China. Based on a patent analysis, it can be expected that STU will enter the age of medium-high temperature in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]