Improvement Effect of Green Remodeling and Building Value Assessment Criteria for Aging Public Buildings

The Green Remodeling Project under South Korea’s Green New Deal policy is a government-led project intended to strengthen the performance sector directly correlated with energy performance among various elements of improvement applicable to building remodeling by replacing insulation materials, introducing new and renewable energy, introducing high-efficiency equipment, etc., with public buildings taking the lead in green remodeling in order to induce energy efficiency enhancement in private buildings. However, there is an ongoing policy that involves the application of a fragmentary value judgment criterion, i.e., whether to apply technical elements confined to the enhancement of the energy performance of target buildings and the prediction of improvement effects according thereto, thus resulting in the phenomenon of another important value criterion for green remodeling, i.e., the enhancement of the occupant (user) comfort performance of target buildings as one of its purposes, being neglected instead. In order to accurately grasp the current status of these problems and to promote ‘expansion of the value judgment criteria for green remodeling’ as an alternative, this study collected energy usage data of buildings actually used by public institutions and then conducted a total analysis. After that, the characteristics of energy usage were analyzed for each of the groups of buildings classified by year of completion, thereby carrying out an analysis of the correlation between the non-architectural elements affecting the actual energy usage and the actual energy usage data. The correlation between the improvement performance of each technical element and the actual improvement effect was also analyzed, thereby ascertaining the relationship between the direction of major policy strategies and the actual energy usage. As a result of the relationship analysis, it was confirmed that the actual energy usage is more affected by the operating conditions of the relevant building than the application of individual strategic elements such as the performance of the envelope insulation and the performance of the high-efficiency system. In addition, it was also confirmed that the usage of public buildings does not increase in proportion to their aging. The primary goal of reducing energy usage in target buildings can be achieved if public sector (government)-led green remodeling is pushed ahead with in accordance with biased value judgment criteria, just as in the case of a campaign to refrain from operating cooling facilities in aging public buildings. However, it was possible to grasp through the progress of this study that the remodeling may also result in the deterioration of environmental comfort and stability, such as the numerical value of the indoor thermal environment. The results of this study have the significance of providing basic data for pushing ahead with a green remodeling policy in which the value judgment criteria for aging existing public buildings are more expanded, and it is necessary to continue research in such a direction that the quantitative purpose of green remodeling, which is to reduce energy usage in aging public buildings, and its qualitative purpose, which is to enhance their environmental performance for occupants’ comfort, can be mutually balanced and secured at the same time.