During the Korea Electronics Grand Fair 2010, the Green-IT Pavilion introduces Green-IT products and technology, case studies, policy businesses and also environmental energy consulting supports and consists of 40 booths.
Recently Green-IT has become an important issue around the globe and EU, Japan etc are managing ITs energy efficiency through R&D, appliance pilot systems, industrial forums, and so on. One of the aspects of the Green-IT Pavilion is the application of the global trend toward Green-IT technologies, both theoretical and practical case studies that introduce the strategy and the cutting-edge technology in order to suggest and support the definition of 'Green-IT.'
The Green-IT Pavilion contains the International environmental energy restriction policy consulting, which contains RoHs, REACH, EuP, WEEE etc. Also there is the new system of PC usage in public, which uses the 'Rack' system to integrate PC's and enhance energy efficiency, which we call the GreenPC system. Case studies of Green-IT companies, solar energy products, and energy managing system by directly controlled KIOSK and so on.
Among these innovative cutting-edge technologies, we would like to introduce three booths that were significant for buyers, or interesting to the audience.
Daeyoung Information system (The Green PC System)
Daeyoung Information system introduces a new concept of PC arrangements in public, or PC rooms, without the actual PC towers. The Booth showed the configuration on the set, a desk full of monitors with people surfing the internet, playing games, watching music videos.
Park Hae-sung, section chief of the Tech Business team explains that it is all possible through the 'Rack-type Green PC system'. The RPS power supplier hooks up to 30 monitors and provides separate operating computers. This is possible by organizing the CPU, mother board, graphic card, HDD etc on a board which is intergraded in a Rack case; no individual power supply or case required. The high efficiency power supply, developed by experts, allows distributing power to individual PC's (RMPC). This setup is able to reduce energy consumption by evacuating heat from PC towers and a cooling system. On each monitor, only a small set-top box (KVM or T-Box) is needed to function as a full PC; the rack and the set-top box.
One of the advantages of this system provides cutting 10~30% of power usage with high-efficiency cooling and ventilating system (5-10% less power usage), and less usage of air conditioning by eliminating heat from PC towers (up to 30% during summer).
The application of the system to the market has been successful. A Gangnam PC Room was the first customer. At the booth, they show pictures of the interior and we see no PC towers at all, just a separate picture of a tiny room that manages the Rack.
But providing the system was not enough. Daeyoung Information Systems provides additional monitoring from the headquarters, allows presentation of the current power usage, which even includes how many computers are running and power efficiency ratio. Data can be saved into Microsoft Excel files, which can be sent to clients at any time.
Section chief Park Hae-sung states “with the system distributed throughout the market, the government gets the ability to plan more efficient power distribution according to the data given by the monitoring program.” He added ”developing Green-IT is not about business models, or the budget, it is rather about the idea, the mindset of concentrating on the environment.”
Samsung C&T (Green tomorrow; with 68 Green-IT technologies)
The Samsung C&T booth was simple. They had a single house model, with a touch screen on the right. The house was filled with Green-IT. The concept house contains 68 Green-IT technologies, which was divided into three themes.
- Zero energy through strategies of optimized energy performance. Green Tomorrow allows reducing a large amount of the energy consumption of the building, and through on-site renewable energy, which can generate the amount of energy exceeding the average consumption, it allows maintaining 0 or + digits of the overall annual energy balance; technologies include passive design, active design, new and renewable energy.
- Zero Emission: eliminating CO2 emissions from all stages, including construction, operation, and demolition stages. Not only the amount of CO2 produced during the construction and demolition stages of the building is canceled out by reducing the amount of CO2 emitted in the operational stage, but also negative environmental impact is reduced; technologies include sustainable materials, water efficiency and waste reduction and recycling.
-Green IT: technology which increases the efficiency of the sustainable energy through the IT technology, and creates a comfortable human-oriented space; technologies include energy managing system, home network and RFID based technology.
The main thesis of the Green tomorrow was to reduce existing power consumptions at the highest level and self-supply the power that is needed for the remaining requirements. Samsung C&T says 'Green Tomorrow pursues a harmonious future with nature. It introduces the new version of the sustainable architecture through creating an environment of energy independence and minimizing the environmental impact. The sustainable future life for humans and nature can be possible in Green Tomorrow.'
KEA(Korea Electronics Association): Green Home Testbed
KEA developed a new method of design and construction, which provides an energy efficient house model that pioneers the criteria of a future residence. The Green Home Testbed project was founded using three steps, each step operated by different organizations.
-Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI): KETI constructed the household energy management & monitoring system. The goal is to set a data of power usage by the residence as a whole. The system provides a reliable data set that proves the effectiveness of the Testbed model, allowing giving basic evidence that could sway governmental opinions, or even general customers about the importance of residential energy management. They monitored 30 households and concluded that by providing the information on current power usage of their own residence, power efficiency increased by 10%.
-Kookmin University: Kookmin university provides data on actual surveys of home appliances; television, lighting etc. Correlating this data along with KETI's information sets a more accurate stat for power management for certain residence.
-Seoul National University: Usually the voltage of electricity that is provided by KEPCO is 0.2million v. This power is converted to 220v, which is used in general households throughout Korea. At this point, power is distributed in a residence as in an AC format, which every home appliance receives. Within home appliances, the AC power is converted again to DC format for actual usage in devices, lighting and so on. Converting power from AC to DC produces an energy conversion loss during the process. But Seoul National University developed an 'AC-DC converter and a DC distribution Unit' to directly send power as DC format to the devices within the household. With this system, companies are needed to develop home appliances which can receive power in the DC format. Applying this system enables households to cut power consumption up to 10%.
The systems mentioned above are combined and offer a possible future residential model, by constructing an effective energy monitoring system. This may seem slightly out of focus as a revenue producing business, but by collecting the data found that the system offers more opportunity in the future Green-IT market, since the importance has been emphasized by the press, businesses and also governments.
KEA says "The purpose of the Testbed project is often interpreted as a R&D session for future investments. Testbed has already being tested on Samsung C&T's Green Tomorrow, 'Green IT' which is mainly focused on Household energy management"
