Barriers to promoting building energy efficiency (BEE): From China's institutional point of view

With good understanding of the barriers to promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE), the current regulations and market incentive schemes can thus be expanded and improved. This paper discusses the typology of barriers to promoting Building Energy Efficiency (BEE) in China. It explores their origins and suggests government measures that could change the institutions to overcome these barriers. Since most of the barriers dealt with can be found scattering in the literature on "market barriers", the originality in the paper lies in the systematic organization, synoptic view and holistic treatment of the possible and unique barriers from the view point of Chinese institution (government and market perspectives) regarding to BEE and a theoretical framework is proposed to identify and review the barriers. Therefore, this paper has delivered a comprehensive review of institutional barriers, including market barriers and regulatory distortions, and their origins and has suggested the measures that contribute to overcoming them. Such a treatment will facilitate the implementation of energy efficiency improvements involving a wide diversity of ever-changing energy end-users and consumer preferences.