Seminar dan Pameran HAKI 2012 - A Review on the Application of Thermal Insulation for

Existing Building- Life Cycle Analysis, Thermal Comfort and Energy Saving
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A Review on the Application of Thermal Insulation for
Existing Building
- Life Cycle Analysis, Thermal Comfort and Energy Saving


BASF


Abstrack

This paper dwells on 2 aspects of thermal insulation for building envelope in terms of life thermal
comfort and energy saving. It is known that installing an appropriate thermal insulation system for
building envelope is recognized as one of the easiest and most cost effective ways of reducing
energy demand whilst simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is often a
misconception of the role of insulation on cooling for warm climates as insulation is usually used
in cold countries to keep the heat in the buildings. Therefore, insulation to keep the interior warm
during winter is well understood but not its ability in keep interior cool in the summer. In reality,
insulating a building is like a thermos keeping the hot drinks warm in the winter and also keeping
cold drinks cool in the summer. Insulation to the building envelope has significant impact on
cooling even if the building is not optimized for cooling (e.g. lack of shading). Countries in tropical
climate, which is characterized with elevated temperature, high relative humidity and heavy
rainfall will greatly benefit from insulation to the building envelope in terms of thermal comfort and
energy saving. A comparison on the interior temperature and air conditioning energy consumption
shows that insulation lowers the interior temperature by 2-3oC and its air conditioning system
consumes less energy. Result from a dynamic thermal building simulation on an existing building
under tropical climatic condition shows that insulation can save significant amount of energy
consume by air conditioning system.
Insulation materials, especially plastic based like polystyrene and polyurethane are assumed to
have high contribution to carbon emission during their production. In order to truly understand the
total contribution of plastic insulation materials, a life cycle analysis has to be carried out
considering the energy used for its production, energy savings during its lifetime and waste
management in terms of energy demand for recycling, energy recovery and disposal of the
materials. It has been reported that within 4 months of the application of plastic insulation, the
energy saving has balanced the energy used for its production. Within 50 years of application, the
energy saving would have reach 150 times compared to the energy used for production.