The China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance and BGI Energy Saving Investment Company, Ltd. (BGI), have signed an agreement establishing BGI as an Alliance Leading Partner, the highest level of Alliance strategic partnership. Through this Partnership, BGI and the Alliance will cooperate to bring world-class energy efficiency policies and products to China. BGI Chairman Zhu Binbin also joined the Alliance Board of Directors.
The Partnership announcement met with intense interest among the Chinese media. Dozens of reporters attended the July 15 signing ceremony at Beijing News Plaza Hotel, leading to stories in leading Chinese news outlets such as China Daily and People’s Daily.
The Alliance is a California-based nonprofit organization committed to protecting the global environment by working with China to promote efficiency as the cleanest and least expensive energy resource in China. Founded in 2004, the Alliance works with experts from government, business, and the nonprofit sector on practical and concrete efficiency solutions with a proven record of environmental and economic success. Alliance Partners contribute to the Alliance mission by providing financial and technical support.
BGI is a pioneering national-level integrated energy services provider, one of the first such companies in China. Their innovative business model and commitment to energy conservation have led to extensive press recognition and numerous awards in China, and they are rapidly expanding their operations.
Alliance President Barbara Finamore noted that BGI is the first Chinese company to join the Alliance, and that BGI’s unique “energy conservation supermarket” platform will deepen Alliance connections to the Chinese energy conservation industry. BGI and the Alliance will cooperate to help ensure that the Chinese energy services industry establishes global connections and adopts internationally proven best practices.
BGI’s Alliance Partnership will have a great and far-reaching influence impact on the Chinese energy services industry, said BGI Chairman Zhu Binbin. “First, by working with BGI, China’s ‘energy conservation supermarket,’ the Alliance can directly engage with the Chinese energy conservation industry and supply chain, including manufacturers of energy-saving products, energy service companies, financial organizations, and others. This partnership will also allow for advancement and dissemination of US innovations in energy technology and management, while expanding opportunities for exchange and cooperation with the Chinese energy conservation industry” he said.
“Second, as the first Chinese company to enter Partnership with the Alliance, BGI can draw on the Alliance’s network of energy conservation leaders, policymakers, major energy companies and energy services providers to advance China-US cooperation, and open new market channels, while promoting innovative efficiency technologies, practices, and financial mechanisms in China. BGI’s Alliance Partnership will thereby create value in the Chinese energy conservation and emissions reduction industries.”
Mr. Zhu joins a wide array of pioneering energy leaders already serving on the Alliance Board. The Board includes prominent members of the venture capital sector, Fortune 500 energy utilities, and specialized energy consulting firms. Alliance Board members have backgrounds in technology, consulting, finance, law, and other areas related to energy efficiency. A detailed roster of Alliance Board members is available at http://www.chinauseealliance.org/team.php.
The Alliance and BGI are organizing a conference, tentatively scheduled for October 2011 in California, that will address energy management and the role of energy service companies in promoting China-US cooperation on energy efficiency
The China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance, together with the Natural Resources Defense Council, supported China’s first large-scale energy efficiency incentive program, which was located in Jiangsu Province, a highly developed area on China’s east coast. In the first three years of this program, Jiangsu avoided the need to build 300 megawatts of new power capacity, according to sources at the China State Grid Power Demand Side Management Instruction Center in Nanjing. The Jiangsu program is now saving 3.5 terawatt-hours of electricity—enough to power 3.3 million Chinese households—and preventing 3.4 million tons of CO2 emissions per year. The efficiency program achieved this success at one-third the cost of meeting electricity demand with new power plants, the sources said.
Following the success of Jiangsu’s efficiency pilot—which was commended as a national model by Premier Wen Jiabao—the Alliance has signed agreements to support efficiency programs in several additional provinces and municipalities.
The Alliance has worked for half a decade advocating in favor of a role for grid companies in China’s energy efficiency policies. In November 2010, the central government issued a decision to require utility-funded energy efficiency programs throughout China. This mandate is a step toward achieving goals set by the central government in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), which aims to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by 16% and CO2 emission per unit of GDP by 17%. By 2020 the country plans to reduce CO2 intensity to 40% below a 2005 baseline.
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