Decarbonization scenarios for residential building sector in South Korea toward climate neutrality in 2050

ABSTRACT

The decarbonisation strategy of the building sector, which accounts for 24% of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is important to achieve climate neutrality in Korea by 2050. In this study, a bottom-up model and four scenarios were developed for examining scenarios for the decarbonisation of the residential building by 2050. A comparative analysis of energy consumption, GHG emissions, and investment cost was performed. The result showed that building energy performance improvement and heating fuel electrification are key measures for decarbonisation. We concluded that an investment of KRW 6.2 trillion per year would be required to achieve the 2050 decarbonisation scenario. Policy strategies were proposed for increasing investment in accelerating building retrofit, mandating zero-energy building (ZEB), and prohibiting gas boilers.

KEYWORDS:

• Building decarbonisation
• decarbonisation scenario
• zero energy building
• building retrofit
• energy efficiency
• heating energy

Abbreviations

BAU: Business-as-usual.

CAPEX: Capital expenditures.

2050 DC: 2050 decarbonisation

EPI: Energy performance improvement.

GDP: Gross domestic product.

GHG: Greenhouse gas.

GtCO₂eq: Giga tons of CO₂eq.

HFE: Heating fuel electrification.

KWh: Kilowatt-hour.

LNG: Liquified natural gas.

m²: Square metre.

MtCO₂eq: Million tons of CO₂eq.

NDC: Nationally determined contributions.

OPEX: Operational expenditures.

TFA: Total floor area.

TWh: Terawatt-hour.

ZEB: Zero-energy building.

Author contributions

Conceptualisation, P.K. and H.I.; methodology, P.K. and H.I.; software, P.K. and H.I.; validation, P.K. and H.I.; formal analysis, P.K. and H.I.; investigation, P.K. and H.I.; resources, P.K. and H.I.; data curation, P.K. and H.I.; writing – original draft preparation, H.I.; writing – review and editing, P.K.; visualisation, H.I.; supervision, P.K.; project administration, P.K.; funding acquisition, P.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The EU currently increases the green retrofit ratio from 1% to 2% annually for private buildings, and is also planning to further increase it for public buildings to 3% (European Commission 2021; European Commission 2020). IEA (2021) points out that annual 2.5% green retrofit is necessary to reach climate neutrality gloablly (IEA 2021).

2 The energy independence rate of new buildings met 20% from 2025, and was increased by 5% for every 5 years by 2045.

3 In Korea, the GDP per capita recorded USD 30,000 in 2017, at which time the gross floor area per person was 33.2 m², which was 75.4% of that (44m²) announced by the IEA (2016). Accordingly, by applying this weight to the IEA's average gross floor area per person estimate, Korea's gross floor area per person was projected until 2050 according to the GDP per capita forecast. However, since the Korean population will decrease rapidly after 2040, it is predicted that the gross floor area per person will increase more than the previous trend at that time.

4 In 2013, the OECD average residential total floor area per capita was 40.5 m², and it is expected to increase to 48.2 m² by 2050 (KOSTAT 2019).

5 Investment costs for district heating were excluded from this study. For district heating, the type of power plant varies depending on the heat source. Since the proportion of each heat source was not assumed in this model, the CAPEX of district heating could not be calculated.