Energy Self-Sufficient Apartment Developed

``Green Tomorrow,’’ a new eco-friendly residential construction that uses no energy from fossil fuel, in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. / Courtesy of Samsung C&T Corp.

By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

A local builder has unveiled an eco-friendly residential construction whose net consumption of fossil fuels is zero.

``Green Tomorrow,'' built in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, as a pilot project, substantially diminishes energy consumption by adopting 68 environmental technologies and generating as much clean energy as it uses, its developer, Samsung C&T Corp., said Sunday.

By adjusting fully optimized layouts and using energy-efficient equipment and materials, the new residence reduces energy that is typically consumed by apartments by 56 percent, the company said. It can produce energy it needs through the use of solar panels and other alternative methods, thus achieving self-sufficiency in energy consumption.

Aside from the energy saving, Green Tomorrow is also a ``no-carbon'' house _ it uses sustainable technologies, such as landscaping based on restoring ecology, and eco-friendly finishing materials, including recycled timber and bio amalgamates.

These measures have earned the building a ``platinum'' rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a certified eco-friendly construction assessment system of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Samsung C&T said it will review the efficiency of the cutting-edge technologies used in Green Tomorrow and analyze accumulated data, to apply them in stages to houses it builds in the future.

The builder is currently supplying ``green apartments'' that cut down energy consumption by 30 percent. It plans to reveal new apartments that reduce consumption by up to 80 percent in a pilot scheme launch scheduled for next year.

Samsung also plans to gradually extend those sustainable technologies to its signature apartment brand, ``Raemian,'' from 2013, as well as to other kinds of constructions such as office buildings, with the ultimate aim of making all of its constructions energy self sufficient.

For the technical improvement of eco-friendly buildings around the country, the company also will make public the related data and know-how collected during the construction and operation for the first three months of Green Tomorrow.

Construction costs for Green Tomorrow were double those of other buildings, but the price gap will be narrowed to around 10 percent when it is commercialized in 2013, according to the company.

The goal is well ahead of the Korean government's plan, which will request all residential buildings to cut energy consumption by 30 percent by 2012.

``All our constructions will be equipped with the new technologies verified through the Green Tomorrow project, so they will be upgraded editions,'' Samsung C&T Vice President Lee Gyu-jae said in a statement.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr