Establishment and validation of a sustainable evaluation model for heat metering technology in China

• Sustainable evaluation model of heat metering technology was established.
• Factors are assigned via a main questionnaire and application of typical projects.
• The model owns high accuracy compared with results of assessment by the government.
• Subjective questions about heat metering were analyzed through technical view.

Although China's heat metering technology has developed rapidly in recent years, the improvement demonstrates an unbalance in different provinces. It is of great significance to outlook application and sustainability of heat metering technology in various regions technically. Taking the sustainability of heat metering technology as research object, the author establishes a sustainable evaluation model in this paper. Factors in the evaluation model are assigned through a main questionnaire and actual application of typical projects. A pecking-order contrast method is adopted to determine weights of factors in the evaluation model, correspondingly sustainable development of heat metering in various locations is assessed. Sustainability scores in three regions (Northeast, Northwest and North China) are obtained via evaluation model. The model owns high accuracy compared with results of heat metering work assessment by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD). The heat metering in the three regions score 60, 62 and 75, respectively, implying that the sustainability in the northeast and northwest is unsatisfactory but in north is somehow better. It is suggested that envelope heat insulation should be increased in the northeast region, while policy support and heat metering technology ought to be enhanced in the northwest.