Chinese government has taken great effort to improve the energy efficiency of existing housing stock. In the northern heating region, the energy performance of existing housing stock has improved considerably through renovation projects in recent years. However, at the moment, all the renovation projects in this region are mainly government-led and government-subsidized. Besides, it is still essential to progress further in both technical and social aspects to meet the ambitious energy conservation target of residential energy efficiency renovation is 500 million square meters by 2020. To achieve the ambitious renovation target, it is urgent to executive diversified financial incentives and motivate the willingness to investment by the homeowners. The cognitive decisions of homeowners that will determine whether the renovation work could proceed smoothly, yet it appeared to be a wealth of nuances and unknowns surrounded. Many homeowners show reluctance in the renovation process, which indicates the dysfunction of policy measure and its implementation, and cause failure to meet the retrofit goals. The aim of the research is to identify the reluctance behaviour of Chinese households in residential energy efficiency renovation, and give policy implications to mitigate the problem. Semi-structured interviews are conducted to analyze the homeowners’ concerns and reasons for reluctance in adopting energy efficiency renovation. Unwilling to investment to the renovation, unsure about the renovation impact to the dwellings and energy performance, and disagree with the mechanism or procedure of the renovation are the main reasons observed.@en

In China’s government-led energy efficient renovation of residential buildings, homeowners’ participation refers to their involvement and engagement throughout the process. Lacking homeowners’ participation has brought difficulties in the execution and financing of the projects. This paper explores the current situation of homeowners’ participation and provides suggestions for optimization from three perspectives: the steps and procedures of the participation process, the composition of the working group responsible for contacting the homeowners, and the contents to be discussed during the process. The semi-structured interview and questionnaire results show that homeowners’ participation is not adequate, and the current arrangement deviates from their expectations. Although most homeowners are positive towards government-led renovation and are enthusiastic about being involved, the process setup is not well-designed to let them fully participate. Moreover, their expectations and preferences are related to several factors. It can be concluded that relevant laws and regulations should be introduced to provide a basis for solving problems at the executive level, and homeowner associations should be established to serve as a channel of communication between homeowners and the working group. Designing targeted renovation and participation strategy is a necessity to minimize the communication efforts@en

In China, energy efficiency retrofit of residential buildings is entering a new stage in which homeowners are the main subject. In order to investigate homeowners’ willingness to invest and to analyze its influencing factors, interviews and a questionnaire survey were conducted in central Tianjin, China. The results show that homeowners have a certain willingness to invest in energy efficiency retrofit but that their willingness to pay (WTP) is far from enough to cover the total cost. Among the influencing factors, the homeowner’s age, education level, and retrofit experience as well as the age and floor area of their home are significantly related to their WTP. The reasons for the impact of these factors are further discussed, including the influences of China’s previous housing policies and retrofit policies. Policy recommendations to promote investment by homeowners are suggested based on the findings.@en

The Chinese government has taken actions to promote energy efficiency through the renovation of residential buildings in the Northern Heating Region. Homeowners have been encouraged to undertake government-led energy efficiency renovation; however, their decisions to undertake the renovation are affected by several barriers. The lack of participation from homeowners has brought difficulties in execution and financing. This study empirically investigated the barriers facing homeowners when undertaking the renovation, including barriers generated from the homeowner’s cognitive biases. The results show that barriers associated with capital cost, unbalanced financial plan, unclear process, comfort, and increased energy prices are the most widely considered when homeowners make decisions about undertaking renovation projects. An adverse decision is most likely to be generated when: (1) when homeowners perceive the financial plan as unfair, (2) when they have already done renovation at their own expense, or (3) when they have the feeling of losing initiative. Among all the individual factors, the homeowners’ gender, age, education level, and building type are significant in predicting their decisions. By drawing on insights from behavioral economics, we analyzed the mechanisms behind these barriers. The findings can help policymakers to design more cost-effective policy instruments to mitigate the barriers@en