China's Minister of Commerce, Chen Deming, visits Green Lighthouse

As part of a two-day visit to Denmark, the Chinese Minister of Commerce, along with the largest Chinese trade and commerce delegation ever, today visited Green Lighthouse in Copenhagen. The Minister was taken on a guided tour of Denmark's first CO2-neutral public building, home to the Faculty of Natural Sciences student service centre at Copenhagen University.

It is only three weeks since the Russian president, Dmitrij Medvedev, visited Green Lighthouse whilst on an official state visit and then decided to build a Green Lighthouse in Russia.

"It is very satisfying that first the president of Russia and now the government of China have shown interest in the principles of the active house. We believe those principles offer enormous potential for solving the global energy challenges facing buildings of the future. By that I mean that such buildings will have to ensure carbon-neutrality and provide a healthy indoor climate," says VELUX Group CEO Jørgen Tang-Jensen.

"Green Lighthouse is an exciting demonstration that it is possible to construct a building according to the active house principles, an energy-efficient and CO2-neutral building offering both fresh air and good daylight conditions. We have also shown that climate-friendly homes and offices can be built with standard products that we can supply to the building sector here and now."

Buildings account for more than 40 per cent of all energy in Europe and represent an enormous potential for reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions. That is why we in the VELUX Group are concentrating on developing sustainable buildings, according to the active house principles, designed to take maximum advantage of the energy of the sun," concludes Jørgen Tang-Jensen.

Green Lighthouse
Green Lighthouse is an unusual building in many respects. Its hallmark is the unique energy concept, a combination of thermal solar heating, seasonal storage of energy and district heating. Because Green Lighthouse allows a great amount of daylight to enter, it is an energy-efficient building of high architectural quality – an active house whose natural ventilation provides plenty of fresh air and a healthy indoor climate for the users.

The sun is the pivotal point and primary energy source of Green Lighthouse, generating energy for both lighting and heating. The building is highly energy-efficient, consuming about 75 per cent less energy than present Danish building standards require.

Green Lighthouse is a concrete result of the strategic public-private alliance between the University of Copenhagen, The Danish University and Property Agency, the Municipality of Copenhagen, VELFAC and the VELUX Group. The partners entered into a synergetic teamwork in order to construct a new sustainable office building with optimal balance between energy efficiency, architectural quality, healthy indoor climate and good daylight conditions. The partnership was awarded with the innovation award for cooperation in 2009.

Green Lighthouse is one of six experiments in the VELUX Model Home 2020 project in which six full-scale demo buildings are being constructed in Europe to test to the concept of climate-neutral buildings with masses of fresh air and a healthy indoor climate.For more information on Green Lighthouse go to www.greenlighthouse.ku.dk