An Analysis of the CO2 Emission Reduction Performance of Sustainable Technologies Applicable to Apartment Houses in Korea

The objectives of the study are to analyze the performance of sustainable building technologies and to provide designers and engineers with reliable technical data in terms of CO2 emissions reduction. The technologies examined for the study include; 'exterior-insulation', 'double-envelope system', 'radiant floor heating/cooling system', 'photovoltaic system', 'solar thermal system' and 'geo-thermal system'. Energy estimation was carried out by using "EnergyPlus" as the simulation program. A sensitivity analysis was conducted in order to determine the relative influence of each technology in terms of energy consumption reduction in a sample apartment house. The CO2 emission rates of each technology was calculated by multiplying respective "carbon emission factor(CEF)". In order to attain reliability of the result, the simulation data were compared with actual energy consumption data, and the two were found to be within the margin of error. The result of the study indicates that the performance of CO2 emission reduction can be achieved best by 'solar thermal system', followed by 'double envelope system', 'geo-thermal system', 'exterior-insulation', 'photovoltaic system' and 'radiant floor heating/cooling system', in descending order. 'radiant floor heating/cooling system' is found to be the least effective system in reducing CO2 emission. The study concludes that in order to reduce CO2 emission effectively, a careful analysis should be conducted in selecting sustainable building technologies.