The Korean village Donggwang gets 100% of its power from the sun. The village is located on the semi-tropical island of Jeju-do. Near the village, Halla Mountain, a volcano and the tallest mountain in South Korea, rises from the island’s center amidst a patchwork of small farms. The village’s forty houses and the school all have large solar panels covering their roofs. A typical roof will have a two kilowatt solar installation. In 2004, the government subsidized the solar systems in Donggwang, paying 70% of the installation fees.
Jeju-du island also has a large wind farm. Last year, the local government announced its plan to raise the island’s wind power generation capacity to 500 megawatts (MW) by 2020, in order to replace 20 percent of conventionally generated electricity. It also had said it will replace 26 percent of existing fuel used in transportation to environmentally friendly fuel.
Via: EcoWorldly and Korea.Net
4 responses so far ↓
1 Christian // May 11, 2008 at 4:42 am
Wow, that is very cool. We get small solar subsidies in Australia, but no 70%! Look at the colour of their water. Stunning.
2 curt // May 11, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Truly wonderful achievement! I also think that they use much less energy per person in average as we in the west. They also have a wiser local government, as it in our case.
3 matt // May 13, 2008 at 6:33 pm
That sounds like a dream! Very futuristic, in my mind, since we’ll be using alternative energies more and more. Looks like a beautiful place to live.
4 Adrian // May 14, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hey! Thanks for the info about this amazing village. I can’t believe the government paid for 70% of the installation…I wish the U.S. could do something like this. I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it). Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).
Leave a Comment