In hot summer, cool electrical appliances such as air conditioners improve people's comfort during summer.
However, the energy consumption caused by air conditioning should not be underestimated. After all, home appliances are the second largest source of energy consumption by residents, and the carbon emissions generated by residents' consumption account for 53% of the total.
The home appliance industry needs to help achieve the dual carbon goal.
In recent years, the energy efficiency label has been revised, the new energy efficiency of air conditioners has been implemented, and the energy efficiency requirements of home appliances have gradually increased.
Relevant departments have continuously introduced measures such as trade-in, green energy-saving consumption coupons, and home appliance recycling; however, the current home appliance recycling industry still needs to be improved, and the recycling efficiency needs to be improved.
In addition, many home appliance companies are also exploring the layout of the new energy industry.
Home appliances are the second largest source of residential energy consumption
"The weather in Beijing has been hot and humid recently, and I can't stay without the air conditioner. The air conditioner was newly purchased during 618 and participated in the trade-in activity." Cao Meng from Beijing bought an air conditioner with first-class energy efficiency. "Although the price of first-class energy efficiency is a little higher, But it can also help save energy and reduce emissions, and the temperature of the air conditioner is usually set to 26°C.”
Trade-in reached a new peak during 618.
According to JD.com data, during the 618 period, the number of JD.com home appliance trade-in orders increased by more than 5 times year-on-year, and the cumulative subsidy exceeded 100 million yuan.
According to data from Suning.com, on June 18 this year, trade-in orders in Suning.com stores increased by 172% year-on-year.
According to data from Midea Group, more than 240,000 people participated in trade-in activities.
In fact, it has been more than ten years since the implementation of the last round of home appliances to the countryside, and most home appliances have exceeded their design life and entered the stage of replacement.
In recent years, relevant departments have repeatedly issued documents mentioning the updating of home appliances.
In January 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission said, "Support the sales of green and smart home appliances, and give consumers appropriate subsidies. Promote the replacement of home appliances." Since then, it has issued many documents to promote the replacement of home appliances.
In April of this year, in order to accelerate the release of green energy-saving consumption potential and promote consumption upgrading, Beijing issued green energy-saving consumption coupons to consumers in Beijing to encourage consumers to purchase and use green energy-saving products.
A total of 20 categories of green energy-saving consumer coupons are applicable, including laptops, tablet computers, monitors, TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.
Behind the green energy-saving consumption is the high carbon emission of household consumption.
The 2020 Emissions Gap Report of the United Nations Environment Programme pointed out that the current household consumption of greenhouse gas emissions accounts for about 2/3 of the total global emissions, and accelerating the transformation of public lifestyles has become an inevitable choice to mitigate climate change.
In addition, a report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows that carbon emissions from household consumption account for 53% of the total.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), household appliances are the second largest source of residential energy consumption, accounting for more than 20% of total residential energy consumption (after heating), a proportion that has been increasing over the past few decades.
Home appliance industry analyst Liang Zhenpeng said that home appliances have relatively high carbon emissions. For example, in hot summer, the use of air conditioners, refrigerators, water heaters and other home appliances has relatively large carbon emissions, and the overall carbon emissions of home appliances can at least reach the carbon emissions generated by household consumption. 30%.
In May of this year, the All-China Environmental Protection Federation, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the National Climate Center issued the "Guidelines for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction for Citizens' Green and Low-Carbon Behaviors", which mentioned that households are recommended to use clean energy such as photovoltaics, wind energy, and geothermal energy.
Use green energy-saving products, such as energy-saving, electricity-saving and other household appliances with Chinese energy efficiency labels.
The temperature of the air conditioner in summer is not lower than 26°C, and the set temperature of the air conditioner in winter is not higher than 28°C, which reduces the standby time of various household appliances.
Energy efficiency labels and new energy efficiency standards for air conditioners continue to improve
In recent years, the home appliance industry has continuously participated in energy conservation and emission reduction.
In August 2004, the National Development and Reform Commission formulated and issued the "Administrative Measures for Energy Efficiency Labeling", marking the implementation of the energy efficiency labeling system in my country.
Since March 1, 2005, it has taken the lead in implementing the energy efficiency labeling system for refrigerators and air conditioners.
After years of development, China's energy efficiency mandatory products gradually cover LCD TVs, rice cookers, induction cookers, washing machines, refrigerators, water heaters, energy-saving lamps, electric fans, air conditioners and other products.
The current energy efficiency labeling system is the "New Version of the Energy Efficiency Labeling Management Measures" that came into effect on June 1, 2016.
Air conditioners are a large energy consumer of home appliances, and the energy efficiency requirements of air conditioners are also more stringent.
At the beginning of 2020, the new version of the national energy efficiency standard for household air conditioners was officially released.
At that time, Cheng Jianhong, a researcher at the China National Institute of Standardization, said that after the implementation of the new standard, the energy efficiency will increase by 30% by 2022, and the existing fixed-frequency air conditioners with low energy consumption and high power consumption and air conditioners with inverter energy efficiency below the third level will all face It was eliminated, and the market elimination rate reached about 45%.
He Jinming, vice president of Aowei Cloud, said that energy efficiency labels and standards lead the entire home appliance industry to develop and produce energy-efficient products. At present, dozens of categories in the industry have energy efficiency labels, and energy efficiency standards are constantly improving.
Among them, the energy efficiency standards of refrigerators and air conditioners in my country are higher than those in the European Union, Southeast Asia, and the United States.
"The level of individual carbon emissions of household appliances is not high, but the overall scale is relatively large. The implementation of measures such as energy efficiency labels and new energy efficiency of air conditioners and the adjustment of product structure will greatly promote the energy conservation and emission reduction of the entire industry. However, the current home appliance carbon trading There is no relevant progress in this regard," said Zhang Jianfeng, executive deputy secretary-general and spokesman of the China Household Appliances Business Association.
Liang Zhenpeng believes that measures such as new energy efficiency of air conditioners, trade-ins, green energy-saving consumption coupons, etc., can play a positive role in reducing the carbon emissions of home appliances.
Of course, in order to reduce the carbon emission level of home appliances, it is necessary to start from the research and development design, raw material procurement, production process, process packaging and other links through scientific and technological innovation.
The recycling system of waste household appliances still needs to be improved
In recent years, home appliance recycling has gradually been paid more attention.
In February 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments proposed, "Accelerate the improvement of the home appliance recycling network. Each region formulates a consumption replacement policy that combines incentives and mandatory consumption based on actual conditions, and encourages enterprises to carry out trade-in." Since then, multiple departments have also jointly issued a document to support the establishment of waste Home appliance recycling system.
Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, has suggested many times to continue to promote the construction of a recycling and disposal system for used home appliances, regulate the trading of used home appliances, and strictly prohibit the use of used home appliances beyond the time limit from entering the second-hand market and rural market; strengthen the promotion and subsidies of the old-for-new policy, which can be issued by the state General requirements, formulate a home appliance trade-in plan, and provide special subsidies for energy-efficient green home appliances.
In addition, during the National Two Sessions in 2021, Zhang Jindong of Suning, and Li Jinbo, director of the Innovation Research Institute of the Home Air Conditioning Division of Midea Group, also suggested the topic of home appliance recycling, which mentioned the use of the "Internet +" platform to build an "Internet +" old product recycling system , improve the efficiency of recycling, reduce recycling costs, and facilitate user processing and corporate recycling.
He Jinming mentioned that the entry threshold for home appliance recycling is high. At present, several relatively large home appliance companies such as Gree, TCL, and Changhong have recycling capabilities.
The core problem of home appliance recycling lies in its dismantling capability. It is difficult to ensure that a sufficient quantity of used home appliances can be recycled by enterprises with recycling and dismantling qualifications, and most of them are digested in the market.
Therefore, it is currently necessary to expand the scale of qualified enterprises and improve the efficiency of home appliance recycling.
"In recent years, the scale of waste home appliances has increased, and home appliance recycling projects are relatively mature. There are related enterprises in each province. However, the coverage of enterprises is not wide enough, the energy-saving subsidies for home appliance products are low, and the enthusiasm of enterprises is not high. Innovation, especially the application of energy-saving technologies, plays a positive role in energy conservation and emission reduction." Zhang Jianfeng said.
It is worth noting that in May this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Recycling Target Responsibility System Action of Home Appliance Manufacturers in 2022", and Haier Zhijia, Gree Electric, TCL Industry, Sichuan Changhong, Six home appliance manufacturers including Midea Group and Hisense completed the target recycling task, with the recycling volumes of 6 million, 5.12 million, 4.41 million, 850,000, 400,000 and 180,000 units respectively.
Fancy helps dual carbon, home appliance companies deploy new energy industry
Achieving the dual-carbon goal not only puts forward new requirements for China's economic structure, but also requires the public to realize a transition to a low-carbon lifestyle.
Entrepreneurs in the home appliance industry are also making suggestions.
During the two sessions this year, Suning Zhang Jindong suggested that "green" development should be incorporated into multiple links of the logistics industry's warehousing, transportation, packaging, and recycling links.
Li Dongsheng, founder of TCL, suggested that a unified personal carbon emission measurement platform should be established, led by the national environmental protection department, and gradually establish a unified national carbon emission measurement account for urban and rural residents.
According to the annual personal life carbon emission data monitoring, confirm the personal carbon quota scope, and guide the public to actively choose a low-carbon life consumption mode.
Explore financial incentives for individual carbon quotas to encourage the public to attach importance to carbon reduction.
Formulate relevant incentive policies, advocate and call for the participation of all people, and improve the green and low-carbon awareness of the whole people.
Zhou Yunjie, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Haier Group, suggested that enterprises should be promoted to build a networked and dynamic carbon emission management system to accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions per unit of production capacity.
Accelerate the opening of the entire industrial chain of waste resource recovery, dismantling, and reuse, and solve development problems in each link.
Strengthen the construction of a national-level recycling industry big data platform, and build an intelligent, efficient, traceable, online and offline integrated circular economy full-process closed-loop system.
In addition, many home appliance companies are also deploying new energy industries.
In recent years, Midea Group has successively acquired and controlled Hekang New Energy and Kelu Electronics to expand its new energy business layout.
Gree Electric holds shares in Yinlong New Energy and Dun'an Environment, and overweights the new energy business.
TCL reorganized and acquired Zhonghuan Group, aiming at new energy materials business such as photovoltaics.
Skyworth Group and Sichuan Changhong are also deploying new energy industries such as photovoltaics.
"The layout of new energy business for home appliance companies is a green transformation at the company level, and energy saving and emission reduction at the product end. From the perspective of new energy such as photovoltaics, the home appliance industry has just entered the industry and has limited impact on the industry; more synergies with its own product system , which shows that the enterprise is paying attention to and exploring the development of green energy, and the whole is just in its infancy." He Jinming said.
Liang Zhenpeng believes that today, Midea, Gree, Haier and other home appliance companies are actively deploying various new energy industries, including photovoltaic power generation, new energy vehicles, power batteries, etc., which will help reduce the carbon emission level of the entire national economic industry. Energy saving and environmental protection, and the realization of the dual carbon goal have a positive and positive role in promoting.
Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Chen Weicheng