U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) Launches Phase 2.0 in Zhuhai, China on October 17th and 18th

On October 17th and 18th at the Singyes Solar building in Zhuhai, China, the CERC-BEE program held a bilateral stakeholder meeting to formally close out phase 1.0 of its work (2010-2015) and launch phase 2.0 (2016-2020). The stakeholder meeting brought together more than 50 representatives from the U.S. and Chinese government, researcher institutes, national laboratories, private industry, non-profit organizations, academia, and demonstration building projects, to discuss achievements under CERC 1.0 and opportunities to deepen bilateral collaboration to drive net-zero energy buildings in both countries under phase 2.0.

In the morning of the first day, Dr. Bob Marlay of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of International Affairs (IA) and Dr. Han Aixing of China Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) kicked off the meeting, expressing both countries' commitments to lead the world in research, development, and deployment (RD&D) of building energy efficiency technologies and to achieve goals for joint development of intellectual property (IP) and to advance net-zero energy buildings. Dr. Nan Zhou of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Mr. Junqiang Liang of MOHURD reiterated these statements and discussed the significant achievements under CERC 1.0, and planned outcomes for CERC 2.0, including development of new building energy codes and standards, new software tools to cost-effectively audit buildings for retrofit opportunities, and precast modular wall systems that are 40% more energy efficient than what is typically manufactured without increasing their installed cost. At the meeting, CERC-BEE U.S. and Chinese researchers met one-on-one with demonstration projects to identify opportunities to showcase and demonstrate new CERC-BEE technologies and solutions.

In the afternoon of the first day, there was a CERC-BEE 1.0 Project Sharing Meeting. Chairman Liu Hongwei of Singyes Solar Board gave a welcome speech, followed by a keynote speech from Dr. Nan Zhou.  U.S. and Chinese researchers then went on a tour of the Singyes Solar demonstration building, featuring advanced natural ventilation window technologies tested by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under CERC-BEE 1.0. After the tour, Luo Duo, Chinese president of the CERC-BEE 1.0 enterprise alliance gave a speech on Singyes experience on CERC-BEE collaboration. Representatives from Shenzhen Institute of Building Research, Johnson Controls, Inc., Guangdong Provincial Academy of Building Research, Shenzhen office of China Academy of Building Research, and CSG Group also shared the cooperation experiences.

Discussion on future collaboration continued to the second day. For more information on CERC-BEE, please visit the CERC-BEE website.

Dr. Nan Zhou at the LBNL gave a speech at the project sharing meeting.

Dr. Han Aixing of China Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) kicked off the meeting.

Dr. Bob Marlay of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of International Affairs (IA) gave an opening speech.