Guo, Yang Yang2026-07-032026-07-030973-0826https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733812841The increasing building energy consumption in China has been acknowledged as a key concern in future climate mitigation and sustainable development. Though reliable accounting of energy consumption is the prerequisite, estimates of China's building energy consumption remain subject to large discrepancies. One of the primary causes of these disparities is an inaccurate estimation of building energy intensities due to flaws in estimation methods and data. Here, we present a bottom-up approach and use large-scale nationwide building energy survey data (covering 30 provinces, four different types of buildings, and district heating from 2009 to 2016) to correct the existing, widely used assumption of normal distribution for building energy intensity and provide a more accurate estimate of building energy consumption in China. Our improved estimate of China's building energy consumption differs by −10% to 36% from existing mainstream estimates, indicating a significant bias in existing research and applications.This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The author gratefully acknowledges the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China in sharing the building energy survey data. The author is grateful to Prof. Biying Yu, Bao-Jun Tang, Yi-Ming Wei, and Hua Liao of CEEP-BIT for their support and critical comments. The author would also like to thank Dr. Sha Yu for her valuable suggestions and comments from Joint Global Change Research Institute in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.18enPublisher Copyright: © 2022 International Energy InitiativeBuilding energy consumptionBuilding energy intensityChina's building sectorNon-normal distributionSurvey202210.1016/j.esd.2022.03.00585126940192