KICT Represents Korea in IEA’s Energy in Buildings

Newswise — The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim, Byung-suk) has been participating as Korea’s representative organization in the Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) programme, an Technical Cooperation Programme under the International Energy Agency (IEA), since 2005.

The International Energy Agency Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (IEA EBC) is an international research organization with 25 member countries including the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and, more recently, Brazil and Turkey. Established in 1977 in response to the global energy crisis, EBC aims to conduct research on conserving energy and boosting efficiency in buildings and communities through international cooperation. It has a long history of continued research on the construction of zero energy buildings and communities, as well as reliable energy efficiency technologies for existing buildings and communities.

Dr. Lee, Seung-Eon of the KICT Department of Building Energy Research participated in the 92nd meeting of the Executive Committee of IEA EBC held in Istanbul, Nov 8-10, 2022 as the country representative of Korea. Discussions on the IEA EBC’s strategic plan for 2025-2029 were held, and four new projects (“Open BIM for Energy Efficient Buildings”, “Low Carbon High Comfort Integrated Lighting”, “Retrofitting Heat Pumps in Large Non-domestic Buildings”, “Implementing Net Zero Emissions Buildings”) were proposed. Korea expressed interest in the heat pump and net zero emissions building projects. In particular, it brought up the importance of researching the impact of human activities alongside system efficiency in net-zero emissions buildings. KICT is currently constructing building energy check-up service platform for wide area based on spatial information and public data, and plans to participate in EBC’s new projects based on this.

With growing global interest in carbon neutrality in buildings as a climate change solution, recent EBC research has been focusing on ways to raise a building’s energy efficiency, as well as improving and efficiently distributing the energy production capacities of buildings and communities. For carbon neutrality in the building sector, the role of building codes is emphasized, and for this purpose, the Building Energy Code Working Group is being operated in EBC.

KICT became a full member of IEA EBC in 2005 after first participating as an observer in 2003, and Dr. Lee, Seung-Eon of KICT has been Korea’s representative in the program since then. Korea has successfully hosted two Executive Committee Meetings (ExCo) of IEA EBC, the first in 2005 and second in 2015.

Korea first participated in an EBC international joint research project in 2007, AIVC which specializes on building ventilation(KICT, Dr. Lee, Yun-Gyu)

Many Korean experts including KICT have since participated in 12 international joint research projects under IEA EBC, including zero-energy buildings (Annex 52) in 2011, micro-generation (Annex 54) in 2012, and building LCA (Annex 72, KICT’s Dr. Chae, Chang U) in 2016.

Dr. Lee, Seung-Eon commented, “Participation in international organizations in the various research fields could work as an effective way to share in advanced technologies and promote Korean technology to the world.”

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The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source technologies and applications in the fields of construction and national land management.

This project is being implemented with support from International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Collaboration Programmes (TCP) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s (Korea Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning) International Joint Research on Energy program, Activities in Multilateral Cooperation Organizations. (EBC TCP : 2021-2025, Representative of the Republic of Korea, Dr. Lee Seung-Eon)