China‘s provincial energy efficiency of construction industry.pdf

Chapter 2 China’s Provincial Energy Efficiency of Construction Industry in 2005–2010: An Empirical Study Based on the DEAModel You-zhi Zhang and Hong-chun Gu Abstract In China’s construction industry there exist high consumption and low energy efficiency, and improvement of energy efficiency has an important signifi- cance for the sustainable development of construction industry. According to the framework of total factor energy efficiency, a DEA model was developed to study China’s provincial energy efficiency of construction industry during 2005–2010. The results have shown that, during this period, the average energy utilization efficiency of China’s construction industry has increased to a certain extent, but technology progress only has limited impact on the improvement of construction energy efficiency; there are significant differences in regional energy efficiency, generally the construction energy efficiency in eastern coastal areas is relatively higher, while inefficient utilization of energy in construction industry has been observed in central-western regions. Finally, the impacts of industrial structure, energy consumption structure, enterprises strength and technology level on the provincial construction energy efficiency have been studied. Keywords DEA ? DEA effectiveness ? Energy efficiency ? Technology innovation ? Energy-saving Energy is an important factor to promote and constrain economic development, improving energy efficiency has been accepted as national consensus. According to statistics, construction industry has become an important pillar industry of China’s economy, the value added of construction industry reached 6.7 % in 2010; on the other hand, despite energy consumption of construction industry accounted for only 1.5 % of the total energy consumption, the total energy consumption of construction industry has increased year by year, has increased from 25.36 million tons of Y.-z. Zhang (*) ? H.-c. Gu School of Civil Engineering and Arch