The Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ) conducted a workshop on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EE&C) of buildings in February, 2017 under the name of SEforALL, inviting ASEAN member states to share knowledge and ideas to develop and implement Building Energy Codes (BEC) effectively in their home countries. This report shows summaries of presentations, discussions, recommendations and outcomes provided through the workshop.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Background and objectives
Background
In 2014, ECCJ submitted the Letter of Intent to the United Nations to serve as SEforALL’s Energy Efficiency Facilitating Hub. In order to contribute to the initiative, ECCJ held a Tokyo Forum in October 2015, focusing on energy efficiency of cities and transportations etc.. One of the 4 sessions was on “City-led Policies for Building Energy Efficiency” that emphasized the importance of EE&C standards for buildings. It was requested from session participants from ASEAN member states that further opportunities should be provided to discuss and exchange ideas on this topic in the near future.
In the meanwhile, ECCJ has more than 10 years of history and experience in working with ASEAN member states for the improvement in EE&C in various areas. One of the ongoing programs is “ASEAN Japan Energy Efficiency Partnership (AJEEP) Program” that has been implemented since 2012. A series of workshops (i.e. ECAPs) were held in Japan, and EE&C of buildings has always been one of the most interested topics among ASEAN member states. ECAP 9, which was the 9th ECAP held in November 2015, was themed on the development and implementation of EE&C standards for buildings, such as BEC and Green Evaluation Codes.
Being aware of the commonness in subjects and objectives of these activities, ECCJ decided to conduct a follow-up workshop of the SEforALL Tokyo Forum, which was aligned with the continued theme of ECAP 9. Taking into consideration that the application of the new version of Japanese Building Energy Code (JBEC) was going to be enforced in April 2017, JBEC was adopted as the main theme of the workshop.
Objectives
Based on the above-mentioned background, ECCJ held the SE4All workshop on February 14-16, 2017 in Tokyo inviting experts from the governments of ASEAN countries. The objectives were:
(1) To learn history of JBEC, along with the characteristics of the latest codes with respect to the designing phase and operation phase of buildings;
(2) To learn various aspects of information on JBEC to be used for the establishment and refinement of BEC in the indivisual ASEAN countries; and
(3) To present the current status of each country through “Country Report” and to prepare “Action Plan” for the future by the end of the workshop.
Outline of the workshop
The workshop program was carefully designed and implemented in the following steps:
Presentation of Country Reports
On the first day, the participants presented Country Reports consisting of (a) the status of BEC in each country, (b) barriers to promoting it, (c) countermeasures against them, (d) ideas for future plans, .etc.
Lectures and Site Visit
The participants obtained a lot of information useful for establishing and executing BEC in the respective countries, through a keynote speech, Japanese speakers’ lectures, and a site visit to a building recognized for its fine energy management.
Small Group Discussion
Small group discussion helped the participants prepare their action plans corresponding to the situations of their countries, by providing free exchange of ideas among participants, special professionals and experts.
Presentation of Action Plans
At the end of the workshop, the participants made presentations on the action plans of promoting establishment and execution of BEC in the respective countries.
Discussions and Recommendations
Discussions were made to facilitate exchanging ideas and opinions among speakers and participants as for various issues relevant to the theme to work out the reasonable solutions in the future for the respective countries. Key points of the discussions were as follows:
・Current status of and future direction of BEC in the individual ASEAN countries.
・History of JBEC, especially in compliance with the standard becoming mandatory.
・New methodologies for evaluating the primary energy consumption of buildings based on the purpose of the buildings, e.g. offices, hotels and stores etc.
・How operation management in buildings works in Japan in terms of energy efficiency.
・Basic idea of the benchmark system of building energy efficiency and the current status of the benchmark system in Japan.
・Efforts being done by SEforALL to improve energy efficiency in the building sector.
Following recommendations for ASEAN member states were also made by experts based on the Japan’s experience.
・Coordinated actions of the central government covering the minimum requirements and the local governments promoting them helps building owners attain the high level of compliance to BEC.
・One of the key indices for building energy efficiency is Primary Energy Consumption. In many ASEAN countries, however, electricity is the major source of energy, where indices other than Primary Energy Consumption may have been used. Therefore, the way of establishing and executing BEC can be different country by country.
・BEC does not have to cover all the aspects (phases of from design to operation, building facilities, envelopes, purpose of buildings, etc.) from the beginning. It can be expanded in a stepwise manner from the minimum level to the comprehensive one. Besides, compliance with BEC can be started as voluntary and changed to mandatory later. In case of Japan, it took about 40 years to reach the present status.
・For countries like Thailand facing a problem in execution of BEC caused by lack of coordination among related ministries, Japan’s way of solving the problem can serve as a useful reference. In Japan, two concerned ministries are collaborating effectively on BEE in a way that clarifies their responsibilities. Specifically, MLITT has a responsibility for BEE in the designing and construction phases, while METI has its responsibility in the operation phase.
Outcomes of the workshop
Outcomes of the three-day workshop were summarized as follows;
(1) The participants shared the information on the current status of their own countries in the field of BEC and understood the proper direction of dealing with the issue by learning the Japan’s experiences.
(2) The participants gained ideas and information from the workshop to be useful for preparing BEC and taking concrete measures for promoting EE&C of buildings in their countries, where there were more rooms to be improved.
(3) The workshop was productive by bringing in not only the action plans regarding BEC in the respective ASEAN countries, but also suggestions for concrete ideas for the future Japan-ASEAN cooperation programs in the field of promoting EE&C in the building sector.