Taipei 101 was on Thursday awarded the top honor in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating system, achieving the highest level — platinum — in the category of operation and maintenance of an existing building.
LEED is a green building certification program based on a rating system for design, construction, operation and maintenance of environmentally friendly buildings.
Projects receive ratings on one of four levels — certified, silver, gold and platinum.
Photo: EPA
Having received a platinum LEED v3 rating in 2011, the skyscraper moved up one spot to attain a LEED v4 rating this year, becoming the first skyscraper outside of the US and the only building in Taiwan to have achieved the feat, according to the organizer of the awards, the US Green Building Council (USGBC).
“With such distinguished leadership, Taipei 101 is showing it can stand taller among its peers without adding a single floor,” USGBC founder, chief executive and chairman Rick Fedrizzi said.
Besides evaluating figures that show how much more energy a building saves compared with a LEED v3 rating, the higher grade requires the candidate to reach out to the local community to build a green network, said Tim Shen, director of head of sustainability at the Asia office of CBRE, a company which provides real-estate services.
Having provided consultation to Taipei 101 on how the achieve the rating, Shen said the skyscraper signed a memorandum of understanding with state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) last year to create a “demand response” partnership.
Under such cooperation, when electricity demand rises suddenly, the building follows a standard operating procedure to lower its usage for a designated period, Shen said.
The module could be implemented by Taipower and other buildings in Taiwan, he said.
Taipei 101 said that although its occupancy rate increased to 95.79 percent at the end of last year, a 50,000m2 increase compared with 2007, the building has saved 262 gigawatts per hour of electricity.
It is equivalent to a reduction of 139,083 tonnes of carbon emissions, which is Daan Forest Park’s total carbon absorption over 357 years, it said.
LEED-certified buildings are resource efficient. They use less water and energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As an added bonus, they save money, according to the USGBC Web site.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
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