Measuring and decomposing Beijing's energy performance: an energy- and exergy-based perspective

Urban energy issues have attracted global attentions due to the key role in controlling climate change. As one of the world's largest metropolises, Beijing has been focusing on improving urban energy performances to achieve green transition and sustainable development during the past decades, for which purpose the measurement and decomposition of energy performance is of vital importance. In this paper, exergy is introduced as one of the indicators under the frame of index decomposition analysis. An hierarchical framework is constructed to reveal the contributions from different level of urban energy system to overall energy performance. Beijing's energy and exergy consumption and intensity are then analyzed and compared from the city and sector level during 2008-2017. Results suggest that Beijing's city and sector-level energy performance has been improving during the last 10 years and technical improvements contribute significantly from both energy and exergy perspectives. Meanwhile, changes from Beijing's industrial structure and energy supply structure display neutral contributions, which probably indicate the underestimation of structural contribution is caused under the IDA framework.