World’s Tallest Green Building?
Taiwan’s Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world from 2004-2007. Now, it is looking to become the world’s tallest GREEN building.
The building’s owner, Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFC), is putting in $1.9 million to give this 101-story building a green makeover.
The renovation will occur over an 18-month period and is primarily for heating, cooling, and ventilation system upgrades. Additionally, the building may start using rainwater to flush toilets and the building’s conventional light bulbs and tubes will be replaced with energy-efficient ones.
To further reduce its greenhouse gases, beyond building design, the building’s restaurants will reportedly start using locally produced food more.
In total, financial savings from the green changes are expected to be $600,000 a year (10% of its current annual electricity costs), which means TFC will get a return on its investments in nearly three years.
As Yvonne Chan in Hong Kong reports: “The green upgrades are being carried out by engineering giant Siemens, environmental management firm EcoTech International Group and interior design consultancy The Steven Leach Group.”
Taipei 101 is looking to get a LEED certification from the US Green Building Council after this — the building already has “a waste recycling programme, grey-water recycling system and a double-glazed glass curtain wall, which shields the building’s occupants from Taiwan’s subtropical heat”.
TFC chairman Harace Lin says: “Taipei 101’s management team is expecting to make it an icon of [the] green building industry in Taiwan and worldwide” and even hopes to have it designated the “world’s tallest green building”.
We will see. I think more and more of these super skyscrapers will be looking to go green with continued concern for our environmental problems and the huge financial savings that can come from being green.
For example, Chicago’s Sear Tower is looking to green up as well and cut its electricity use by 80%, according to an announcement earlier this year.
via BusinessGreen
Related Stories:
1) Architectural Firm in Barcelona Drafts Solar Media Screen for Taipei’s New Music Center
2) The 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth
3) The Costs of Not Building Green
Image Credit 1: FranciscoDiez via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Fishtail@Taipei via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Prince Turtle via flickr under a Creative Commons license
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November 30th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
When you say that “the building’s conventional light bulbs and tubes will be replaced with energy-efficient ones”, does that mean LED lights, or just fluorescents?
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
Any building must use combined-cooling-heating-electricity generating units to be considered “CLEAN” or “GREEN”. Sodium Sulphur batteries or Vanadium redox batteries to shift the electrical load to off peak and to store electricity from the CHP unit are also important. Large tanks to store hot water as well as ice storage for cooling peaks are also important. It is also time to consider Direct Current wiring to save on electrical losses. The power buses can be fed directly from the batteries. All lighting fixtures, including fluorescent, can now be fed with direct current which eliminates some loses in conduits. All motor drives can also be fed with direct current with increases in reliability and efficiency. The drives which match the motor speed to energy needs already are reducing power losses, but their performance and reliability would be increase with the use of direct current input. Where alternating current is needed for standard equipment, high efficiency pure sinewave inverters can be employed, and their cost can be quite low with high efficiency. ..HG..