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Although China's heat metering technology has developed rapidly in recent years, the improvement demonstrates an unbalance in different provinces. It is of great significance to outlook application and sustainability of heat metering technology in various regions technically. Taking the sustainability of heat metering technology as research object, the author establishes a sustainable evaluation model in this paper. Factors in the evaluation model are assigned through a main questionnaire and actual application of typical projects. A pecking-order contrast method is adopted to determine weights of factors in the evaluation model, correspondingly sustainable development of heat metering in various locations is assessed. Sustainability scores in three regions (Northeast, Northwest and North China) are obtained via evaluation model. The model owns high accuracy compared with results of heat metering work assessment by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD). The heat metering in the three regions score 60, 62 and 75, respectively, implying that the sustainability in the northeast and northwest is unsatisfactory but in north is somehow better. It is suggested that envelope heat insulation should be increased in the northeast region, while policy support and heat metering technology ought to be enhanced in the northwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] The rapid development of urbanization has created high demand for central heating systems. This trend has led to an increase in energy consumption for central heating, which has made China's energy-saving transformation extremely difficult. However, the channel by which urbanization impacts and the future trends of energy consumption for central heating are still unclear. Therefore, this study employs the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method to decompose the effect of urbanization on changes in energy consumption for central heating during 2001–2019 in China. We investigate the contribution of urbanization from demographic, economic and spatial perspectives. Additionally, a scenario analysis is used to explore trends in energy consumption for central heating in different projected urbanization scenarios. The results show that urbanization has a positive impact on energy consumption for central heating, particularly in underdeveloped regions. Demographic urbanization has the strongest positive effect on energy consumption for central heating, followed by spatial urbanization and then economic urbanization. Compared with the expansion of area and economic development, population agglomeration will bring more energy consumption for central heating. The forecasting results indicate that energy consumption for central heating will reach 176–189 Mtce in 2030, which is approximately 1.4 times the current level. This work quantifies the energy consumption for central heating in the future under urbanization. The policy recommendations given at the end of the paper will provide a reference for the formulation of energy consumption for central heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The energy consumption of 38 Chinese district heating systems was investigated and compared. • Method to break down the consumption and evaluate the operational problems was presented. • Field measurements were conducted to evaluate problems leading to high energy consumption. • Overheating was responsible for 23% of total heat consumption. • Resistance, operation flow, and pump efficiency were three major problems in distribution networks. Worldwide, China has the largest district heating (DH) area and is also the fastest growing country. This paper presents field measurement results for operational energy consumption from 38 DHSs to fill in the gaps in understanding of the current operational issues of the district heating system (DHS). The average heat consumption during the heating period was 98.6 kWh/m2 and the monthly average electricity consumption for circulating pumps in the primary and secondary networks was 0.27 kWh/(m2 × month) and 0.29 kWh/(m2 × month), respectively. Thereafter, a systematic method for breaking down the energy consumption and quantitatively evaluating the underlying problems is presented. Based on several detailed measurements conducted in typical heat-exchange substations (HESs), it was found that overheating was the most prominent problem in energy-efficient buildings, constituting 23% of the total heat consumption. Another problem encountered was heat loss through pipes, which constituted approximately 5%–10% of the total heat consumption and was highly dependent on the actual conditions. In distribution networks, problems such as high resistance, high operational flow, and low pump efficiency were also identified and analyzed. Finally, practical energy-efficiency suggestions and future potential targets for the Chinese DHS are discussed from both a design and operational perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]