Published : Oct. 15, 2014 - 21:17
The following is the fourth in a series of articles on the creative green economy, which focuses on generating new growth engines and was initiated by the Park Geun-hye administration and the Ministry of Environment. ― Ed.
Saving energy to sustain the environment is not an easy task.
People will have to break old habits or thinking, and adapt to a new lifestyle as a start.
But with the right tools and appliances, they can learn to efficiently manage energy at home or office, which would start a positive ripple effect throughout the economy and make the country a lot more environmentally friendly.
From digital thermometers, lighting controls to convergent household appliances and smart devices that let consumers keep not only their health in check, but also their electricity consumption, these emerging applications offer people new ways to use less energy than they unnecessarily do.
South Korea’s small and medium enterprises such as JProject, Austin International and Future Advanced Tech have introduced some innovative and convergent household products that can help save energy and decrease carbon gases, which have contributed more than 50 percent to global warming.
JProject’s LED lights, which use lead-free glass materials, have the potential to replace existing less-efficient LED lights that often overheat.
It uses a light-emitting technology by embedding LED chips in transparent glass, and its glass resins help prevent the chips from getting contaminated.
JProject’s LED chandelier lights give a 3-D effect. (KEITI)
The company noted that its low-heating lights not only offer a longer-lasting life span but also enable users to save energy by 25 percent over conventional lights.
It is applying its LED light technology to create chandeliers with designs that allow consumers to easily assemble and generate a “three-dimensional effect” with a variety of lighting patterns when turned on. The LED chandelier lights ultimately seek to increase beauty and pleasantness, it said.
Austin International’s cooking pot helps users save gas. (KEITI)
Austin International’s household appliances such as its cyclone cooking pots also allow consumers to save time and gas when cooking meals.
Its pots with a sophisticated interior structure that can control and use heat and gas more efficiently enable users to save at least 40 percent more energy than conventional wares. For instance, consumers can heat up 1.5 liters of water in less than 4 minutes with Austin’s pots, compared to 10 minutes with existing pots when using the same amount of energy.
The company came up with an idea for the pots after finding out that Koreans have been consuming too much energy while cooking. Also, there have been a number of fire accidents due to overuse of gas.
There are about 1,250 households in the country that spend a total of 2.1 trillion won ($2 billion) on gas for cooking a year.
Amid an increased awareness to burn less fossil fuel to protect the environment, Austin International began its research and development to find ways to reduce the use of cooking gas. If Koreans can save at least 10 percent on gas, they will be able to save 210 billion won annually; if they save 40 percent, they can save 840 billion won.
And if they can save cooking time by about 30 to 40 percent, they can help reduce carbon gases, the company said.
It added that the pots can be useful especially during the summer as they have less effect on room temperature. It will also be able to create jobs in the light manufacturing industry by revolutionizing cooking wares, which will add value to households.
Another Korean small and medium enterprise ― Future Advanced Tech ― has introduced a new way to grow fresh vegetables and keep fish at the same time by converging its technology know-how in light-emitting diodes and ceramic coating materials.
Aqua-farming can be achieved at home by converging home aquariums with plant cultivation platforms. It can use water in the aquariums to grow fresh organic vegetables via eco-friendly filtering systems, and its coating materials for this technology can curb the spread of bacteria just like a humidifier at home. Its LED lights enable plants to go through the photosynthesis process allowing them to absorb light energy and release oxygen, the company said.
Future Advanced Tech’s aqua-farming platform (KEITI)
The filtered water, in turn, flows back inside the aquariums, enabling users to keep their fish tanks clean.
The advantage of its converged aqua-farming is that households can grow plants or vegetables twice as fast as conventional cultivation methods, and save limited home or office spaces when growing both fish and plants.
It can also make the air inside homes cleaner, the company noted, adding that all it took was adding water to the aquariums and that users did not have to spend a lot of time cleaning them.
The Ministry of Environment and the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute have been supporting the private sector to create innovative products that can help protect the environment in line with the country’s goal to join the world’s top 10 green industry powerhouses by 2020.
By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)