Potentials Analysis of Carbon Mitigation and Energy Consumption Reduction of Shanghai Non-Residential Buildings

The aim of this study is to analyze the potentials of energy consumption and the energy-related carbon reduction of Shanghai non-residential buildings, to discuss the contributions of positive policies. This study uses system dynamic tool to examine the behaviour of the complex social-economic-energy system over time. This study defines three types of scenarios, BAU (business-as-usual), reference and ambitious scenarios in which policies on sustainability and technology progress are different. In order to highlight the importance of policies, this study adds several sub-scenarios and compares the contributions of them. The results show that Shanghai can reduce by at most 22% of building energy use and 30.9% of the energy-related carbon emissions by 2020 on the 2005 baseline. The strong economic incentives, including both encouraging and punishment measures are quite helpful for Shanghai building energy efficiency and CO2 reduction.