With the rapid development of China economy and the constant improvement of living standard in recent years, building energy consumption has already accounted for 46.7% of the total social energy consumption. It is urgent for China to explore the road of building energy conversation. In this paper, based on ECOTECT software, authors have done some beneficial explorations in the scheme design phase from the perspective of residential estate planning. Taking a residential estate in Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province as an example, authors have analyzed meteorological data and energy conservation strategies that are closely related to local environment. To realize the optimization of residential estate planning, some factors have been analyzed, such as building orientation, daylight on building, and natural ventilation condition. By the application of ECOTECT, designers could give full consideration to various ecological energy-saving methods in the early design stage. The results in this paper are useful for both building energy conversation and creating a comfortable living environment in future. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved,