Abstract:

The building sector of China is in urgent needs of low-carbon transition for achieving the national carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Sweden has the second lowest carbon emission intensity in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, counted in the unit of either per total primary energy supply or per GDP, and thus the low-carbon transitional pathways of the Swedish building sector are worthwhile to be investigated. In this paper, the final energy use intensity and the carbon emission intensity are calculated for the operation stage of the building sector in Sweden. The calculation results show that, although the Swedish building sector features a higher final energy use intensity per floor area, 1.3 times higher than that of China, the carbon emission density of the former is only one tenth of the latter. Furthermore, comparisons are made between Sweden and China from a variety of perspectives such as the category of the buildings and the type of the energy use activities. For providing insights on planning the low-carbon transition strategies for the building sector of China, the technological paths and policy frameworks adopted along the low-carbon energy transition of the Swedish building sector are analyzed. Policy suggestions under the scopes of cultivation energy-saving mindset, building electrification, reducing heating demands, and setup of carbon-free heat source are provided for the issue of decarbonization of the building sector of China. Some specific suggestions are given, such as to promote a green lifestyle and to advocate the improvement-oriented design concept of indoor built environment for preventing the rapid increase in energy consumption of buildings, to limit the thermal performance of new buildings and to renovate existing buildings for reducing heating demands, and to promote collection and utilization of surplus heat and biomass fuels for reaching low-carbon heating.

Key words: Building sector, Energy saving and carbon emission mitigation, Carbon neutrality, Sweden, Policy suggestion