Sino-American Building Energy Standards Comparison and Recommendations towards Zero Energy Building

Building energy conservation has gained tremendous interest since the 1970s energy crisis. Building energy standards have been established as prescribed guidelines for energy savings in buildings worldwide, among which those from China and the United States of America (USA) are representative of their advanced concept, comprehensive content and prospective guidance. This paper collected and generalized the main building energy standards in China (GB50189, JGJ26, JGJ134 and JGJ75) and the USA (ASHRAE 90.1), in terms of updating history, current status, energy saving potential and future development directions. Furthermore, a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the selected standards was performed. The results show that China has a more intact and comprehensive building energy standard system, better implementation, higher improvement in energy saving rates, and a more perspicacious upgrade towards zero-energy target, which results in effective energy savings in buildings. The ASHRAE standards have more fixed chapter framework, integrity and independence between versions, more detailed classification of building envelope and HVAC systems but less effective energy-saving effect and relatively poor implementation. The actual efficiency of standards in building energy saving is synthetically determined by the standard content, efficient implementation and explicit guidelines for future development, which is achieved through four main procedures. Based on the results, recommendations have been proposed for the future development of building energy standards with the ultimate goal toward zero energy buildings.