The concept and methodology of building commissioning were introduced to China mainland in 1990s by Prof. Yingxin Zhu of Tsinghua University, accompanying to the collaborated research between Prof. Nobuo Nakahara and Prof. Yingxin Zhu. Using an office building located in Beijing as a case study, Prof. Yingxin Zhu applied the commissioning procedure to the retrofit process of the VAV systems. However, limited by the requirement of quick construction, building commissioning was not put emphasis on so that a lot of poor performance buildings were built in China mainland. On the contrary, building commissioning is well developed and emphasized in Hong Kong. The concept of building commissioning was introduced to Hong Kong as early as in 1980s. In 2002 Hong Kong Building Commissioning Center (HKBCxC) was built and focused on developing consummate building commissioning methodology and promoting the application of building commissioning in Hong Kong.
Noticing the situations in mainland China, from 2008 the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) began to start the research and practice of building commissioning. In 2010, using the building commissioning guideline and standard of ASHRAE, the CABR conducted a series of building commissioning activities in several buildings, such as Hangzhou Xizihu Siji Hotel, Beijing Sijishijia Apartment and Hotel, Guangzhou International Financial Center, Shenzhen Siji Hotel, China National Development Bank, etc.
In 2011, by the cooperation of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) of United States of America, the China Ministry of Housing-Rural Development, the CABR, and seral other research institutes and companies, a research project on building commissioning was started and the commissioning guideline and technologies suitable for China were preliminarily built up.
In 2015, the new China Evaluation Standard for Green Building firstly included the evaluation item of building commissioning. Further, several national standards under development, such as Technical Code for VAV System, Standard for Maintenance of Green Buildings etc., take building commissioning into consideration as well. The issuing and implementation of these codes and standards will greatly promote the development and extension of building commissioning in mainland China.