EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ) conducted a workshop (ECAP14) on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EE&C) of buildings on 27 November – 1 December, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. This workshop (ECAP14) is under AJEEP, inviting ASEAN member states (AMSs) to share knowledge and ideas to develop and implement Building Energy Codes (BEC) / Green Building Codes (GBC) effectively in their home countries. This report shows a summary of presentations, discussions, recommendations and outcomes provided through the workshop.

Background

ECCJ has been engaged in ASEAN-Japan cooperation in EE&C for nearly 20 years.

ECCJ has contributed to EE&C in ASEAN countries through the multi-lateral cooperation framework since 2000 and one of successful programs is “ASEAN Japan Energy Efficiency Partnership (AJEEP) Program” started in 2012. A series of workshops (i.e. ECAPs) has been held in Japan, and EE&C of buildings has always been one of the main topics among ASEAN member states. The background of this work there lies an APAEC activity. APAEC, standing for ASEAN PLAN OF ACTION FOR ENERGY COOPERATION, has four main “Outcome-based Strategies” for EE&C program including:

1) Harmonization and Promotion of Energy Efficiency Standards and Labelling on various kinds of energy-related products
2) Enhancing private sector participation including Energy Service Companies(ESCOs) for EE&C promotion
3) Developing green building codes which support the use of high energy efficient products.
4) Enhance the participation of financial institutions in EE&C development.

The recent workshop on the theme of EE&C of building was in ECAP 9 (the 9th ECAP) held in November 2015 and SEforALL’ workshop held in February 2017. Government experts of ASEAN countries were invited to discuss the development and implementation of EE&C standards for buildings and green buildings, such as Building Energy Code (BEC) and Green Building Codes (GBC).

Sharing of the new version of Japanese Building Energy Code

In Japan the new version of Japanese Building Energy Code (JBEC) with respect to a design phase is enforced from April 2017. The standards specified in JBEC for designing EE&C buildings are unique, practical and data-based, which impose on building owners compliance with the mandatory standard when they newly construct or retrofit buildings. This mandatory requirement by the law for EE&C of buildings was put into effect first time in Japan since JBEC was enforced in 1980. For the EE&C in operation of buildings, the energy intensity target (benchmarking) of each category of none-residential buildings such as offices, hotels and stores has been under development and been announced one by one as the energy management standard in connection with JBEC.

development and been announced one by one as the energy management standard in connection with JBEC.

Based on the results of the SEforALL Workshop in 2017 and the long-lasting discussion of BEC (Building Energy Code) in the ASEAN countries, we have decided to hold a workshop with a focus on two subjects i.e. (a) to let them understand the new BEC of Japan as it is and (b) to let them study how to set the management target in terms of the operation of the building facilities and equipment. By learning Japan’s efforts in the past to enforce BEC on business operators as a mandatory standard and the current state of BEC in respective countries, the workshop participants were able to learn what their present positions are in comparison with the other countries and what directions they should follow. Furthermore, by sharing examples of energy conservation technologies and operation status of Japanese buildings and best practices in building energy efficiency, they succeeded in getting good lessons on concrete measures in policy formulation and improvement for promoting building energy efficiency, which is relatively a weak point of ASEAN countries. Due to the participation of the members who had experiences of ECAP 4, 7, and 9 with the theme of building energy efficiency, they have successfully got the idea of the goal of their own roadmap and shared the direction of Japan-ASEAN cooperation in promoting the building energy efficiency.

Objectives

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) present status and future task of BEC/GBC in respective countries, (b) present status and future task of ASEAN Energy Award, .etc.

present status and future task of BEC/GBC in respective countries, (b) present status and future task of ASEAN Energy Award, .etc.

Lectures and Site Visit

The participants obtained a lot of information useful for establishing and executing BEC/GBC in the respective countries, through a keynote speech, Japanese speakers’ lectures, and a site visit to a building recognized for its fine energy management.

Discussion

All member 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/GBC in the respective countries.

Recommendations by the advisers and Discussions among the participants

Points of advisers’ recommendations

Following recommendations for AMSs were also made by experts based on the Japan’s experience.

(1) With reference to the lecture of Ms. Masaki,

Based upon the enlargement of the EE&C related organization, Yokohama city tries to change the situation in hands-on manner to the one where compliance becomes a matter of course by the following means;

・Raising awareness of construction owner about the new system

・Establishing a built –in market mechanism by the merit of building EE&C such as standardization of Labeling System for the building EE&C.

・Enrichment of the number and the capability of the staff in charge of the guidance to resolve applicants’ issues realistically.

・Issuing improvement instructions in a manner which can motivate applicants to make an output in any case.

(2) According to the lecture of Mr. Uchida, the subject cases of evaluation of energy consumption performance compatibility increased so much after April 2017 when new Building Energy Code was enforced into effect. It was found to be more important to recognize the adequate placement of engineers who can deal with engineering matter related to architecture, Mechanical & Electrical (M&E) and electrical facility. The company struggled to match those situation by various measures to find a successful situation in Japan.

(3) Mr. Moroo, in his lecture, recommended setting reasonable baseline and target,

feasible plan for continuous energy management & monitoring system, and clearing step by step roadmap to realize ZEB in the future.

(4) According to the lecture of Mr.Ushio, It became difficult from a certain phase to continue decreasing the energy consumption intensity by 1% or more in yearly average in industry sector of Japan. In consideration of this situation, the benchmark system was introduced in Japan. At the same time due to the difficulty of establishing EE&C target of the commercial sector, the benchmarking system was supposed to be useful. AMSs are expected to learn Japanese introduction process to customize it in conformance with their own country’s situation.

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/GBC in individual ASEAN countries.

・Understanding and confirming the goal of these series of workshops i.e.ECAP4, 7, 9 and SEforALL workshop (2017) and establishing regulatory framework for building  energy efficiency of the BEC and GBC for all of the AMSs.

・Implementation status and issues of JBEC after the standard becoming mandatory.

・Basic idea of the benchmark system and ZEB Family concept of building energy efficiency and its current status in Japan.

・How to improve ASEAN Energy Award (AEA) evaluation standards and procedures in order to promote preparation and implementation of BEC/GBC in each AMS as the reference for their target with the expectation of the function of leverage.

・How to increase the number of entries to AEA in order to make more involvement of the countries who have been submitting less or no applications to the AEA System.

・Learning the policy and implementation situation of BEC/GBC and ZEB related knowledge to promote energy efficient buildings from Japan and AMSs through the lectures, site visit and country reports, how the concept of Japan’s ZEB standard can be adopted as the evaluation standard of the AEA System.

Comments by ACE after the discussion

Through discussions including the proposals of Malaysia to improve the judging process, some inputs were highlighted in terms of EE&C Awards Guidelines as follows;

(1) Discussion was made duly and nicely as for the following matters;

1) On the purpose of the ASEAN Energy Awards to promote EE&C in ASEAN

2) Breakdown of sub-criteria (EM&EEB/GB).

3) Revision of the scoring systems and ranking system such as Top 5, Top 10 or Platinum, Gold, Silver.

(2) Proposals were made on top of the above discussion, outcome was supposed to be dealt as the pending issues;

1) Extension of Pre-Judging time to two (2) weeks to allow BOJ to have enough time for scoring all entries

2) Inclusion of the scores of BOJ who were not able to attend the BOJ Meeting, especially the BOJ from the countries that have no entry submission

3) BOJ to provide the score on entry from their own country Awards (to recognize BOJ as ASEAN’s BOJ instead of by country)

(3) Other points were raised including but not limited to the following;

1) To provide special awards to all submissions such as Exemplary or Merit Awards or plaque/trophy to appreciate their effort

2) To write up the winners contents to be uploaded in the ACE website

(4) The items 1-3 above will be further considered and agreed in the 22nd Annual Meeting of EE&C-SSN to be held in the week of 17-20 April 2018 in Singapore.