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[Display omitted] • Carbon emissions are explored in China's building operations from provincial perspective. • GDIM is employed to factorize ten affecting factors of CO 2 emissions in building sub-sectors. • CO 2 emissions of building sub-sectors are predicted with dynamic simulation. • The contribution of provinces to the change and peak of national emissions are discussed. Carbon emissions from building operations have a critical impact on achieving carbon peaking goal in China. However, the provincial emission performance in building operations are quite different and it is still unidentified how they affect the national emission change and peaking target, making national emission reduction target hard to implement at the provincial level. This paper explores the driving factors leading to emission changes and examines the prospective emission peaks in China and China's provinces by adopting generalized Divisia index method (GDIM) and the combination of scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, the regional emission heterogeneity and the contribution of provinces to the change and peak of national emissions are discussed to identify regions and provinces that should be focused on emission monitoring. Results show that in China and most Chinese provinces, energy consumption of commercial buildings, energy consumption and floor space of urban residential buildings besides income improvement, and the per capita CO 2 emissions of rural residential buildings contributed greatly to emission growth. Under current policies, commercial and urban residential buildings in most provinces would fail to reach their emission peaks ahead of schedule. The urban residential buildings in the northern region, commercial and rural residential buildings in the eastern region caused higher CO 2 emissions. At the provincial level, Shandong, Shanxi and Hebei made the top contribution to total emissions of commercial, urban residential and rural residential buildings, respectively. Shandong and the provinces in north China of urban residential buildings and four provinces including Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei and Zhejiang of commercial and rural residential buildings had the significant impact on the uncertainty of the peaking time of CO 2 emissions. These findings provide a strong decision-making reference for Chinese government to formulate targeted regional emission reduction policies in building operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The degree of influence of residential cluster layout factors on building heating energy consumption levels in cold regions of China. • Provides an idea of residential layout optimization and design based on the energy saving objectives of residential clusters, translating quantitative indicators such as wind environment into residential layout form design problems. • Energy simulation-based residential planning and layout design method is used to quantify the relationship between residential cluster design factors and energy efficiency in Jinan, resulting in optimal design parameters for residential planning factors in Jinan. • The study of building heating energy consumption in a city in a cold region of China, with a methodology that can be used in countries or cities with similar climate characteristics. Residential heating energy consumption in China accounts for about 34% of the total building operation energy consumption in the country. The layout pattern of residential clusters is one of the most critical factors affecting building heating energy consumption, yet few scholars have studied the layout of residential clusters in a quantitative way. This paper takes Jinan, a typical city in cold region IIB of China, as an example, to quantify and analyse the residential layout parameters related to heating energy consumption: group layout, building orientation and building spacing; ECOTECT and HTB2 are used to model and simulate the energy consumption of the three types of layout residential groups selected for the study, and the relationship between residential group layout parameters and residential heating energy consumption is analysed based on multiple linear regression analysis. The relationship between residential group layout parameters and residential heating energy consumption was analysed based on multiple linear regression analysis. The study shows that, on the premise of ensuring the same building density, the group layout has the greatest influence on the building energy consumption, and the courtyard layout has lower heating energy consumption compared to the row and staggered layout; on this basis, the influence of building orientation and building spacing on heating energy consumption is discussed. The study shows that increasing the spacing between buildings to meet the daylight spacing will reduce energy consumption by 4% and that a 15° shift to the west will reduce energy consumption by 5%. This result confirms the importance of cluster layout in terms of heating energy consumption and urban energy efficiency in cities in cold regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We selected three benchmarking methods to establish building energy benchmarking models based on a sample of 45 hotel buildings in China. • We compared the three benchmarking methods in terms of consistency, robustness and explanatory ability. • The energy efficiency performance obtained from the three methods were found to be inconsistent. • We came up with suggestions based on comparative analysis for policy-makers to develop building energy benchmarking programs. A reasonable building energy efficiency benchmarking program plays an important role in energy consumption control and supervision. Previous studies have focused on the process of establishing a single benchmarking method, but few have compared the performances and outcomes of different methods. To fill this gap, this paper selects three benchmarking methods—multiple linear regression (MLR) based on Energy Star, stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and the descriptive statistics method (DSM) based on the national energy consumption standard in China—to develop benchmarking models. We demonstrate each method using data on the energy and building characteristics of 45 four- and five-star hotel buildings located in Chongqing, China. To compare the consistency, robustness and explanatory ability of the three methods, we first utilize the Spearman rank correlation analysis to test whether these methods have consistent energy efficiency ranks and then present Sankey diagrams to further reveal the interactions of the estimated energy efficiency grades obtained from the three methods. It is found that the results of DSM and SFA are most consistent, while MLR vs. SFA and MLR vs. DSM present significant differences in evaluating building energy performance. In addition, DSM is more robust for evaluating the ranks of sampled buildings, while SFA is more robust for evaluating energy efficiency grades. Furthermore, we discuss the explanatory ability of each method. In addition to the building characteristics, the design and operational characteristics of the HVAC system have great effects on building energy consumption. Finally, we present suggestions for policy-makers regarding the development and implementation of the building energy benchmarking program in Chongqing and for the management of buildings with different energy performances to further improve the energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]