Mandatory Zero-Energy Building Requirement for Private Buildings Over 1000㎡ Starting in 2025

▲ 2nd Basic Plan for Green Buildings Promotion System (Provided by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport)

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] From this year, zero-energy buildings will be mandatory in the public sector. From 2025, this will also be mandatory in the private sector.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 8th that the "2nd Basic Plan for Green Buildings (2020-2024)" containing these details will be implemented from this month. The Basic Plan for Green Buildings is a statutory plan established every five years under the "Green Building Promotion Act." Following the 1st Basic Plan, which led fundamental improvements such as strengthening insulation standards to the level of advanced countries, the 2nd Basic Plan aims to revitalize the green building market by mandating zero-energy buildings.

This Basic Plan presents five major strategies to realize the vision of "green buildings that contribute to improving citizens' quality of life, achieving innovative growth, and leading a low-carbon, low-energy society." The five strategies are ▲strengthening energy performance of new buildings ▲promoting greening of existing buildings ▲enhancing innovative growth capabilities of the green building industry ▲establishing a green building culture with public participation ▲expanding green building market infrastructure. To achieve this, 12 policy tasks and 100 detailed implementation tasks will be pursued.

For the first strategy, strengthening energy performance of new buildings, the Ministry of Land plans to enforce zero-energy mandates this year for public buildings with a total floor area of 1,000㎡ or more. By 2025, it intends to lay the groundwork to expand this to private buildings of the same size. Additionally, the current permit standard based on total energy consumption, which is at grade 1, will be strengthened to grade 1+ next year and further raised to grade 1++ in 2023.

Furthermore, the annual green remodeling interest support, which currently stands at about 10,000 cases as of 2018, will be doubled to 20,000 cases by 2024 to promote greening of existing buildings. Alongside this, the development of domestically produced Building Energy Management System (BEMS) technology will reduce BEMS installation costs by more than 30% compared to current levels, thereby enhancing innovative growth capabilities. Plans also include spreading a green building culture based on citizens' daily lives and expanding various market infrastructures.

Kim Sang-moon, Director of Building Policy at the Ministry of Land, said, "While the 1st Basic Plan for Green Buildings contributed to raising public awareness and forming the market for green buildings, the 2nd Basic Plan is expected to induce substantial expansion of the green building market, contributing to the development of related industries and job creation."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.