Newly designed buildings to supply 8% of electricity in Seoul
Solar panels are installed on the rooftop of the Hwigyeong Brownstone apartment complex in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, Sept. 22. Yonhap
Newly approved buildings across the capital of Korea are expected to generate 3,811 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually, driven by city mandates requiring solar facades and geothermal heating in building designs.
According to data released Friday by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the projected clean energy output — stemming from architectural plans reviewed between 2022 and 2026 — will equal roughly 8 percent of the city’s total electricity consumption once construction is complete.
The output from these upcoming structures is 1.5 times the annual capacity of the Seoul Thermal Power Plant, the city’s historic energy anchor, and represents 85 percent of all renewable energy capacity installed in the capital over the previous 17 years combined.
The push comes as Korea works to expand its clean energy mix, where renewable sources currently account for around 9 to 11 percent of national power generation — leaving urban centers like Seoul, which relies heavily on power drawn from outside regions, under pressure to boost local self-sufficiency.
The shift reflects a broader policy effort to convert dense, land-scarce urban centers into active power producers. Unable to deploy traditional wind or solar farms across limited land, municipal planners are requiring clean energy infrastructure to be built directly into new structures.
Central to the initiative is Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) — solar generation panels built into exterior walls and facades — alongside subterranean geothermal heat pumps. Under revised green building standards introduced in January 2025, city officials began discouraging decorative glass curtain-wall facades in favor of energy-generating BIPV technology, while imposing stricter renewable thermal energy targets for commercial buildings exceeding 30,000 square meters.
Of the projected annual output from the newly reviewed designs, solar installations account for 1,916 gigawatt-hours and geothermal systems contribute 788 gigawatt-hours, with the remainder coming from secondary renewable systems.
"The projected renewable energy generation from building designs approved over the past five years forms a critical foundation for the city’s energy transition," said Myung No-joon, head of the Housing Bureau at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. "By mandating geothermal and BIPV systems at the initial design phase, we are boosting building efficiency and driving greenhouse gas reductions across the capital."
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.