The Seoul municipal government said Wednesday it is seeking to build solar power facilities at about 1,000 of its schools in an effort to cope with the effects of global climate change.
The city signed an agreement with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and a local environmental organization, officials said, as part of its measures to conserve energy and reduce the country's reliance on nuclear power.
Under the agreement, the city will first install solar power panels at 200 schools this year before expanding the project so some 1,000 schools will be equipped with solar power facilities with a total capacity of 100 megawatts by 2014, according to officials.
The municipal education office will also equip schools and other public buildings with energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as well as provide programs to educate students on how to save energy, officials added.
The city announced its plans amid a nationwide campaign to conserve energy, with South Korea pushing to become one of the world's top five green economies by increasing its use of renewable resources to meet more than 10 percent of the country's energy needs by 2030. Currently, less than 2.5 percent of the nation's total energy is generated from such resources. (Yonhap News)
