Seoul City Expands 'Low-Carbon Building Support Project' to 10 Billion KRW... Interest-Free Support for High-Efficiency Ventilation Equipment Replacement

Yongsan Park Tower switches from central heating to district heating... Expecting 27% energy savings for 1,014 households
Energy savings and indoor infectious disease prevention simultaneously through support for high-efficiency ventilation system replacement

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government, which is promoting the Building Energy Efficiency (BRP) support project to achieve 1 million low-carbon buildings, has expanded the project scale to 10 billion KRW through a supplementary budget. With this budget secured, it is expected that more citizens will be able to benefit from interest-free loans for building energy performance improvements.

On the 22nd, Seoul City announced that although the budget allocated for this year's building energy efficiency loan support project is 3.5 billion KRW, due to increased demand for project applications, an additional 6.5 billion KRW was added through the supplementary budget, equivalent to 185% of the support volume in the first half of the year. So far, the number of applications for the city's building energy efficiency project is 76, amounting to approximately 3.9 billion KRW.

In the case of Yongsan Park Tower Apartment, the heating system was converted from central heating using existing city gas to district heating, and an energy management system was introduced to significantly reduce energy consumption. The city provided an interest-free loan of 740 million KRW for the district heating conversion facilities, which is expected to reduce energy consumption by about 27% compared to the existing level upon completion and save 200 million KRW annually in energy costs.

District heating is a system that economically produces heat (hot water) at large-scale heat production facilities such as combined heat and power plants and supplies it collectively to large areas. It is a heating system that is superior in energy saving and pollutant reduction compared to conventional heating methods. Yongsan Park Tower Apartment uses a total of 1,517 TOE annually (thermal energy 1,360.5 TOE, electrical energy 156.3 TOE), and replacing the existing central heating with district heating can reduce 428.8 TOE.

Heat exchanger

Additionally, the city supports the installation or replacement of high-efficiency ventilation equipment that not only improves building energy efficiency but also helps prevent the spread of infectious diseases within buildings caused by air conditioning systems. Heat exchangers (high-efficiency ventilation equipment) discharge contaminated indoor air outside while recovering the thermal energy of the air and adjusting fresh outdoor air to a temperature close to the indoor temperature. Since it typically recovers more than 70% of the existing heat, it saves energy compared to natural ventilation such as opening windows.

Since 2008, the Seoul Building Energy Efficiency project has been a program that provides interest-free loans covering 100% of construction costs when energy-inefficient factors in buildings are improved and utilization efficiency is increased through the replacement of high-efficiency materials such as insulated windows, insulation materials, boilers, lighting, and ventilation equipment, thereby reducing energy consumption.

The loan limit is up to 60 million KRW for residential buildings and up to 2 billion KRW for other buildings, with the loan principal to be repaid in equal installments within 8 years. For buildings, a grace period of up to 3 years is also possible.

Yoo Yeon-sik, Head of the Seoul Climate and Environment Headquarters, said, “Through cooperation with specialized research institutions such as the Seoul Institute of Technology, we will discover various targets that can support not only the improvement of energy efficiency in aging houses and buildings but also the improvement of a healthy living environment, and promote and support them to citizens. We hope that citizens will show great interest and participation in the building energy efficiency project, which can reduce greenhouse gases and also save heating and electricity costs.”

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