raising comfort levels, but the process also reduces energy consumption and air pollution for society and drives the development of related industries. It will increase work opportunities for society and advance the nation's economic development, thereby benefiting the government and society as a whole. Also, according to expert predictions, every kilowatt of energy saved will reduce investment in energy production supply by RMB9,200. In addition to this, because of the marked highs and lows of electricity and natural gas supply in China, energy efficiency construction methods can effectively alleviate this issue and reduce operational costs, benefiting energy suppliers. Therefore, from the perspective of an analysis of the whole energy supply chain (from energy production to use to supervision), energy efficiency in existing buildings can benefit the whole system, not just the energy end-users (i.e. the buildings’ users) but also the government and energy production suppliers. However, the current system of division of costs is not designed from the perspective of the parties who benefit from the whole energy flow, and has lost rationality. Additional reasons for the difficulties of sharing investment costs also include problems in calculating the quantity of energy used and the quantity saved. Currently, the methods of calculating energy consumption, the calculation equipment, and the reliability of calculation results in China are still not able to satisfy the needs of energy management. For example, because central heating in buildings is centrally metered, it is difficult to individually calculate the energy savings of each property owner.
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• The Legacy of Housing Reform Under the current housing system in China, there are still a large number of properties established under housing reform. According to the regulations governing these houses, the personnel only have property rights to the inside of their housing. The corridors and stairs are collectively owned by the work unit. According to the principles of demarcation of responsibilities under property rights, personnel are responsible for the cost of energy renovations in the interior part of the housing, and the work unit should bear the cost of the renovation of the public part of the building. According to the principle of whoever benefits invests, the main party that directly benefits from renovations are the personnel. Therefore, the cost of renovation of the public part of the building easily leads to conflict.
• The Problem of Rental Properties In terms of rental properties there is also conflict between the letting parties and tenants. Proprietors invest in the energy renovation of the housing, which can improve the thermal capability of the housing, increasing its usage value, thus increasing the rental value of the property. The letting parties of the properties will reap the benefits of renovation, and therefore should bear the costs. However, after the letting parties and tenants have signed a rental contract, the benefit to the letting party has already reached its optimum value, if they then carry out energy-efficient investments they will have to reduce their profits. Also, rent will increase, possibly reducing the rental capacity of the property for the letting party. During the period that the tenant is renting the property and investing in the energy retrofitting, they will save energy and improve the thermal comfort of the housing , but there
© AFD / Implementing Large-Scale Energy Efficiency Programs in Existing Buildings in China / October 2010