Mitigating emissions and costs through demand-side solutions in Chinese residential buildings
Kairui You, Yan Li, Weiguang Cai, Lulu Zhang, Zhengxuan Liu, Wei Feng, Yi‐Ming Wei
Abstract
The building sector plays a pivotal role in climate change mitigation. By regulating the demand for services and products from supply sectors, building sector can contribute to decarbonization. To assess the decarbonization and cost-saving potential of demand-side solutions for China’s residential building sector, this study develops a demand-side solution framework and an end-use technology model. The model covers the building sector and major supply sectors, considering the heterogeneous impacts of demand-side solution measures on different supply sectors. Here we show that the most optimistic cost-effective demand-side solution can reduce cumulative CO₂ emissions by 47% (42.21 Gt CO₂-eq), while achieving a 16% saving in the net present value of costs over the period 2020−2060. Additionally, results indicate that the demand-side solution enable China’s rural residential buildings to achieve carbon neutrality without carbon dioxide remove options, while simultaneously mitigating uncertainties in reaching carbon neutrality targets. In Chinese residential buildings sector, avoid, shift and improve measures in demand-side solution will mitigate 47% of cumulative CO2 emissions and 16% of cost before 2060, and reduce the uncertainty of achieving carbon neutrality target.