Village on South Korean Jeju Island Runs Completely on Solar Power

Solar power seems to be the future or at least this is what a South Korean village teaches us.  Donggwang is getting all its power directly from the sun and is totally energy independent with clean technology.

Today, Donggwang is a solar town because in 2004 the government subsidized the installation of solar panels on all of the 40 buildings in the village, paying 70% of the total cost. More than that, the local government is helping the community of the Jeju-du Island, to install a large wind farm. This is a long term plan that will raise the wind power generation up to 500 megawatts by 2020, in order to replace 20 percent of conventionally generated electricity.

Choo Chan Lee is a Seoul native that now lives in Donggwang. When asked by Gavin Hudson what he thinks about the environment he said :

“Yeah, the environment is a very important issue. In Jeju we don’t have many factories, so the air is very nice. Very nice environment. The motto is a clean city – clean island. They’re trying to do this solar and then the windmills. My favorite part of living in Jeju is the fresh air. The clean air.”

I think this is just the start and more and more cities will learn something from such a good example.

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