Investigation on the Winter Building Energy Consumption in Rural Areas in Jinan, China

AbstractThe rural building energy consumption is significantly increasing with the development of the economic level and the rural building energy consumption consumes up to 50% of the total building energy consumption in China. In this study, the field measurements and a large amount of questionnaires were carried out in nearly 50 villages located in five different suburban counties in Jinan, China. The present rural residential building envelop characteristic, indoor thermal environment, occupant thermal/humidity perception as well as the heating energy data were analyzed. The results mainly show that the heating energy consumption using coal fuel in rural area accounts for majority of building energy consumption with the value of up to 83%. This study also provides appropriate measures such as renewable energy technologies according to local natural resources to save rural building energy. It is useful to help the government to make a strategic decision