A groundbreaking ceremony was held in Hagye-dong, Nowon District in northeastern Seoul on Tuesday to build the country’s first "zero-energy housing complex."
 
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport explained that the housing project calls for building homes where cooling, heating and lighting will be provided without the use of fossil fuel. Under the 44-point-two billion won project, 121 energy-efficient rental housing units will be built by the second half of 2016.
 
The ministry said that the rental homes are also designed to reduce total energy consumption in the house by using renewable energy created on the spot. Solar cells and geothermal heat pumps will be installed on the houses enabling them to produce renewable energy. Also, zero-energy houses will be built with energy-efficient materials such as changhoji, a traditional Korean paper for insulation.
 
The ministry predicts the energy cost at the zero-energy houses will be at least 70 percent less than the average energy cost at ordinary national rental houses in the country.